1807–1892. American poet. { Encyclopaedia Britannica } { Whittier Birthplace }
At a Glance
Chronicles of Avonlea (1)
Jane of Lantern Hill (1)
Index to This Page
The Eternal Goodness (1)
Songs of Labor (1)
The Eternal Goodness (1865 poem)
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care. (Lines 77–80)
Jane of Lantern Hill, chapter 9 (“islands that lifted their fronded palms in air”).
Songs of Labor (1850 poem)
So haply these, my simple lays
Of homely toil, may serve to show
The orchard bloom and tasselled maize
That skirt and gladden duty’s ways,
The unsung beauty hid life’s common things below. (Dedication, lines 26–30)
Chronicles of Avonlea, epigraph (“The unsung beauty hid / life’s common things below”).
Sources
Whittier, John Greenleaf. The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier: Household Edition. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company; Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1894. Online at https://archive.org/details/completepoetica00whituoft/.
“The Eternal Goodness,” pp. 318–19; “Songs of Labor: Dedication,” p. 112.