"
Whittier had now "found himself" as a poet. It is true that his
style remained diffuse and his ear faulty, but his countrymen,
then as now uncritical of artistic form, overlooked the blemishes
of his verse, and thought only of his vibrant emotion, his scorn
of cowardice and evil, his prophetic exaltation. In 1847 came the
first general collection of his poems, and here were to be found
not merely controversial verses, but spirited "Songs of Labor,"
pictures of the lovely Merrimac countryside, legends written in
the mood of Hawthorne or Longfellow, and bright bits of foreign
lore and fancy. For though Whittier never went abroad, his quiet
life at Amesbury gave him leisure for varied reading, and he
followed contemporary European politics with the closest
interest. He emerged more and more from the atmosphere of faction
and section, and, though he retained to the last his Quaker
creed, he held its simple tenets in such undogmatic and winning
fashion that his hymns are sung today in all the churches.
When "The Atlantic Monthly" was established in 1857, Whittier was
fifty.
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