Personal Sketches and Tributes, Part 2, from Volume VI., - The Works of Whittier: Old Portraits and Modern Sketches by John Greenleaf Whittier
page 10 of 41 (24%)
page 10 of 41 (24%)
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to Richard H. Dana, on the occasion of the ninetieth anniversary of that
honored father of American poetry, still living to lament the death of his younger disciple and friend. How much he has accomplished in these years! The most industrious of men, slowly, patiently, under many disadvantages, he built up his splendid reputation. Traveller, editor, novelist, translator, diplomatist, and through all and above all poet, what he was he owed wholly to himself. His native honesty was satisfied with no half tasks. He finished as he went, and always said and did his best. It is perhaps too early to assign him his place in American literature. His picturesque books of travel, his Oriental lyrics, his Pennsylvanian idyls, his Centennial ode, the pastoral beauty and Christian sweetness of Lars, and the high argument and rhythmic marvel of Deukalion are sureties of the permanence of his reputation. But at this moment my thoughts dwell rather upon the man than the author. The calamity of his death, felt in both hemispheres, is to me and to all who intimately knew and loved him a heavy personal loss. Under the shadow of this bereavement, in the inner circle of mourning, we sorrow most of all that we shall see his face no more, and long for "the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still." WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING Read at the dedication of the Channing Memorial Church at Newport, R. I. DANVERS, MASS., 3d Mo., 13, 1880. |
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