John Greenleaf Whittier

The Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) was born today in Massachusetts, where he spent most of his life. Both his birthplace in Haverhill and the home where he lived for nearly sixty years in nearby Amesbury are preserved as historical sites (an honor not bestowed on most hymnwriters). Of course, few of his poems were intended as hymns, but hymnal editors from his own time to the present have captured stanzas from his poetry, assembling them into texts for congregational singing.

As recounted here before, his literary career was encouraged by William Lloyd Garrison, who published many of his early poems and the two men bonded over their commitment to the abolitionist cause. In 1833 Whittier was a delegate to the first convention of the American Anti-Slavery Society, where he signed its declaration (written by Garrison), an act that he was to recall as one of the most significant events of his life. He later served as the Society's secretary, and over the next few years he traveled throughout the northern states lecturing against slavery. Confrontations with proponents of slavery were many, and some were violent.  In 1838 he moved to Philadelphia to edit the Pennsylvania Freeman, a prominent abolitionist newspaper. The paper moved its offices to Pennsylvania Hall, a newly built meeting place for abolitionist organizations, but the building was burned in a riot only three days after its grand opening.

By 1839 the abolitionist cause was beginning to fracture over various disagreements. Whittier broke with Garrison, who insisted that the country would only change by a great tide of moral persuasion. Whittier believed that the cause had to be politically viable for any change to happen, and he joined the Liberty Party in 1840. He continued to write poetry for the anti-slavery cause, both before and after emancipation finally occurred, though most of his later verse (from which the hymns are primarily taken) was written on other themes.

Whittier's Quakerism was more than a religious feeling; he dressed in traditional Quaker garb and conversed in the 'simple speech' of the Quakers (though it may sound quite 'formal' to us today). It's probably natural that he would have disliked the boisterous revival services and camp meetings held by the evangelical preachers of his day, and his most well-known hymn appears to be a reaction against such worship. Today's hymn, like his others, is taken from a longer poem, The Brewing of Soma (first published in the Atlantic Monthly in April 1872), which begins with a description of the rites of early Hindu worship, where the priests concoct a formula which produces 'sacred madness' and 'a storm of drunken joy.'  He goes on to link this practice to various other sects and cultures through history before bringing it home to his readers:

And yet the past comes round again,
And new doth old fulfil;
In sensual transports wild as vain
We brew in many a Christian fane
The heathern Soma still!

The final six stanzas of the poem are still often sung today, giving us a model for worship that Whittier preferred, incorporating the Quaker values of silence, reverence, and peace.

Dear God, the Source of humankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard,
Beside the Syrian sea,
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and follow thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee,
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with thee
The silence of eternity,
Interpreted by love!

With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of thy call,
As noiseless let thy blessing fall
As fell thy manna down.

Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1872; alt.
Tune: REST (Maker) (8.6.8.8.6.)
Frederick C. Maker, 1887

It should probably be remarked that some of the denominations that Whittier was chastising would eventually include this hymn in their own worship without any compunction.  The preceding stanzas are all but unknown today. Some contemporary commentary also believes this hymn to be relevant in our time because of some connection to 'drug culture,' but again, almost anyone singing this hymn today knows nothing about its origins.

The original first line of the hymn, Dear Lord and Father of mankind, has been altered in a few different ways in recent years. The two most popular seem to be Dear God, embracing humankind, and Dear Lord, who loves all humankind, but the line above predates those, taken from the hymnal project I worked on from 1989-1992.

Composer Frederick C. Maker wrote this tune specifically for this text when it appeared in the Congregational Church Hymnal (1887). Though that book was published in London for use in the UK, REST is now considered to be the American tune, and English hymnals prefer REPTON by C.H.H. Parry (though the final two lines in each stanza have to be repeated unnecessarily).




Eight Years Ago: John Greenleaf Whittier

Six Years Ago: John Greenleaf Whittier

One Year Ago: John Greenleaf Whittier

Lydia Sigourney

One of the most widely-read poets in her time, Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney (September 1, 1791 - June 10, 1865) published fifty-nine books of poetry and prose. She was born in Norwich, Connecticut. the daughter of a gardener, and one of his wealthy employers paid for her education at a private school.  She opened a school for girls in Norwich (sources date its founding to either 1809 or 1811) and she taught there and in Hartford until her marriage in 1819 to Charles Sigourney. She had already published her first book, Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse (1815), but her husband requested that she now publish anonymously.

Lydia agreed to this stipulation and continued to submit to magazines and publish books of her prose and poetry. She initally donated the proceeds from her writing to organizations advancing such social causes as temperance, peace, and abolition, but by the 1830s her husband was no longer entirely able to support their family and she became the primary breadwinner. At that time, she also began to publish under her own name. Her writing was so well known that the publisher of the popular magazine Godey's Lady's Book paid her an honorarium for the use of her name in the masthead beside its other editors (including Sarah Josepha Hale), though Sigourney had no editorial duties. The social concerns that she supported continued to appear in her writing, and she was an early advocate for Native American causes.

A number of hymns later identified as hers first appeared in Village Hymns (1824), a Congregationalist collection assembled by Asahel Nettleton for the General Association of Connecticut, and over the years Sigourney's hymns appeared in several other hymnbooks, including Maria Weston Chapman's abolitionist collection, Songs of the Free (1836).

I found today's hymn in a collection titled Lyra Sacra Americana: or, Gems from American Sacred Poetry (1868), and though it probably appeared earlier I do not know whether Sigourney considered it a poem or a hymn.  As you know, hymnal editors have often believed such authors' intentions to be relatively unimportant.

Prayer is the dew of faith,
Its raindrop, night and day,
That guards its vital power from death
When cherished hopes decay.
And keeps it 'mid this changeful scene
A bright, perennial evergreen.

Our works, of faith the fruit,
May ripen year by year,
Of health and soundness at the root
An evidence sincere;
Dear Savior! grant your blessing free,
And make our faith no barren tree.

Lydia H. Sigourney, 19th cent.; alt.
Tune: BATH (6.6.8.6.8.8.)
William Henry Cooke, 19th. cent.

(Apparently this meter is rather unusual, as I could only find one tune with a sound file available online. BATH by William Cooke is somewhat acceptable, but probably not the best match.)

Sigourney's autobiography, Letters of Life (1866) was published after her death. Fortunately, she did live to see the end of slavery and the Civil War. Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a memorial poem, including these lines:

She sang alone, ere womanhood had known
The gift of song which fills the air to-day:
Tender and sweet, a music all her own
May fitly linger where she knelt to pray.

John Greenleaf Whittier

December 17  is the birthday of Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier, born in Haverhill, Massachusetts.  His childhood was spent working on the family farm and he was largely self-educated.  Later influenced by the poetry of Robert Burns, he took to writing his own verses, and was first published by editor William Lloyd Garrison in the Newburyport Free Press in 1825.  Garrison sought out Whittier and encouraged him to pursue a career in journalism, and the two men would later share a strong commitment to abolition and other social causes.  Whittier edited several newspapers and journals and eventually became one of the foremost American poets of his day.

Despite Whittier's claim of rarely writing verse for congregational singing, hymnal editors from his time to the present have frequently adapted sections of his longer poems into hymns.  Today's text comes from his poem The Eternal Goodness which was in twenty-two stanzas.  Various combinations of stanzas from this poem have appeared in hymnals for the last century and a half, and this is one more arrangement.

Within the maddening maze of things,
When tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings;
I know that God is good!

And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,
The bruised reed God will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have,
Nor works my faith to prove;
I can but give the gifts God gave,
And plead that love for love.

And so beside the silent sea
I wait the muffled oar;
No harm from God can come to me
On ocean or on shore.

I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
God's mercy underlies.

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1867; alt.
Tune: ABIDING GRACE (C.M.)
John S. Camp, c.1905

I think there's something about this text which speaks to the stress and activity that can overcome us at this time of year.

Composer John Spencer Camp (1858-1946) was a church musician in Hartford, Connecticut and probably wrote more tunes than this one, though it's the only one available at the Cyber Hymnal site.



Seven Years Ago: John Greenleaf Whittier

Five Years Ago: John Greenleaf Whittier 

Jonathan Myrick Daniels

Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a martyr for the civil rights movement in this country, is remembered today in the calendar of the Episcopal Church.  Daniels was a seminary student in 1965 when he heard a televised appeal by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for more clergy of all denominations to become involved in voter registration of African-Americans  in Southern states.  Daniels wrote that he was inspired by the words of the Magnificat, Mary's prophetic song of liberation from the Gospel of Luke, and became convinced that he was being called to engage in this work.

Daniels was working in Alabama when he and other protesters were arrested and jailed for six days.  On August 20, upon release, they were looking for transportation out of town when they were confronted by a man with a shotgun, who aimed at Ruby Sales, a sixteen year old girl.  Daniels pushed her aside and was shot in the chest himself, dying immediately. His killer was later acquitted at trial on the grounds of self-defense.

This murder of a young seminarian brought more attention to the civil rights struggle.  In 1991 Daniels was declared "a martyr and witness to the Gospel" by the Episcopal Church, to be commemorated on this day, the anniversary of his arrest (because August 20 was already marked for another saint). I have used this hymn before, several years ago, but it seems appropriate again on this day.

O pure reformers! not in vain
Your trust in humankind;
The good which bloodshed could not gain,
Your peaceful zeal shall find.

The truths you urge are borne abroad
By every wind and tide;
The voice of nature and of God
Speaks out upon your side.

The weapons which your hands have found
Are those which heav'n has wrought:
Light, truth, and love -- your battleground,
The free, broad field of thought.

Press on! and if we may not share
The glory of your fight,
We'll ask at least, in earnest prayer,
That God will bless the right.

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1843; alt.
Tune: MARTYRDOM (C.M.)
Hugh Wilson,1800; arr. Ralph E. Hudson, c.1885

A fellowship in his name has been established at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Daniels was a student.  Next fall, the Episcopal diocese of Rhode Island plans to open the Jonathan Daniels House in Providence, where Daniels also engaged in ministry before traveling south.

Ruby Sales, the girl whose life was saved that day, has continued her involvement in the civil rights struggle up to the present day.



Four Years Ago: Samuel Sebastian Wesley 

Two Years Ago: Samuel Sebastian Wesley
 

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Quaker poet and activist John Greenleaf Whittier, born today in 1807, did not consider himself a hymn writer.

I am really not a hymnwriter, for the good reason that I know nothing of music. Only a very few of my pieces were written for singing. A good hymn is the best use to which poetry can be devoted, but I do not claim that I have succeeded in composing one.

However, hymnal editors since his time have not shared his opinion, and even today most hymnals you will see contain his work. It's true that most of his hymns were not written as such, and are often taken from longer poems. Sometimes the same poem yields different hymns, or at least different arrangements of stanzas. John Julian, in his Dictionary of Hymnology (1907), lists 33 hymn texts by Whittier and traces their provenance from the original poems. Today, at Hymnary.org, which has references from hundreds more hymnals since Julian's work was compiled, they list 165 texts, and the number may even be larger.

This hymn is derived from Whittier's 1859 poem My Psalm, which is seventeen stanzas long, and has birthed several different arrangements of stanzas.

All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told.

That more and more God's Providence
Of love is understood,
Which makes the springs of time and sense
Bright with eternal good --

That care and trial seem at last,
Through memory's sunset air,
Like mountain-ranges overpast,
In purple distance fair;

That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.

No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1859; alt.
Tune: ST. FULBERT (C.M.)
Henry J. Gauntlett, 1849

John Julian also wrote that Whittier's hymns were "characterized by rich poetic beauty, sweet tenderness, and deep sympathy with human kind."

A new book, Congregational Hymns from the Poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier (2009) by Samuel J. Rogal delves into this subject further, and you can see a preview of it online thanks to Google Books.


Two Years Ago: John Greenleaf Whittier

One Fold, One Faith, One Hope Restore

Today's hymn of unity, one of this year's ordinary time themes, was adapted from a longer poem by the Quaker activist John Greenleaf Whittier, which was written for a somewhat different purpose.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Thy grace impart! in time to be
Shall one great temple rise to thee
Thy Church our broad humanity.
Alleluia!

Sweet flow'rs of love its walls shall climb,
Soft bells of peace shall ring its chime
Its days shall all be holy time
Alleluia!

A sweeter song shall then be heard,
The music of the world's accord
Proclaiming Christ, the living Word!
Alleluia!

That song shall swell from shore to shore,
One fold, one faith, one hope restore
The seamless robe that Jesus wore.
Alleluia!

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1864; adapt.
Tune: VICTORY (8.8.8. with Alleluias)
Giovanni da Palestrina, 1591
adapt. William H. Monk, 1861

This four-stanza text may have been first adapted for congregational singing in the Unitarian New Hymn and Tune Book (1914) but the Whittier poem dates back to the Civil War. It was written for the dedication of "Thomas Starr King's house of worship," which was the second church building of the First Unitarian Church of San Francisco (pictured here), which was at 133 Geary Street (now the site of the Neiman-Marcus department store).

Thomas Starr King was a prominent Unitarian minister and respected orator of his day, who came to California in 1860 and used his political influence to ensure that California remained part of the Union in the months leading up to the Civil War. In addition, he helped organize the West Coast division of the United States Sanitary Commission (predecessor to the Red Cross) and raised a great deal of money for that organization. Whittier's original theme of unity in his fifteen-stanza poem for Starr King was more about the divisions of the war and its causes, as seen in these two stanzas:

But through the war-cloud, pray to thee

For union, but a union free,

With peace that comes of purity!

That thou wilt bare thy arm to save,

And, smiting through this Red Sea wave,

Make broad a pathway for the slave!

The familiar tune used for this hymn was arranged by William H. Monk from a choral piece by Palestrina, and is most often sung at Easter, with The strife is o'er, the battle done.

Two Years Ago: Amy Beach

One Year Ago: Amy Beach

More Voices Found: Lucy Larcom

Lucy Larcom (March 5, 1824 - April 17, 1893) was born in the seaside town of Beverly, Massachusetts into a family of eight daughters. Her father, a retired sea captain, died when the girls were young, and her mother moved the family to the town of Lowell, where she opened a boarding house for workers at the local cotton mills.

Lucy, like her sisters, worked in the mills herself for ten years, starting at age 11. A brief description of life in the mill can be found here, but she wrote a far more lasting account in the autobiographical A New England Girlhood (1889) her most well-known book, which is still in print today.

During the time Lucy worked at the mill, the girls there formed a kind of literary club called the Improvement Circle, where they read books and wrote poems and stories, which they published in a magazine, the Lowell Offering, said to be the first American magazine written solely by women. The Offering came to the attention of the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who took an interest in Lucy's work and became a lifelong friend.

After her employment at the mill, Larcom attended the Monticello Ladies' Seminary in Illinois, earning her tuition by also teaching some of the younger classes. She returned to Massachusetts where she taught at the Wheaton Female Seminary (now Wheaton College) in Norton. Poor health caused her to give up teaching, and she became the editor of Our Young Folks, a magazine for children.

Larcom published several volumes of poetry during her life, and edited some collections by her friend Whittier. Several of her verses on religious themes have been used as hymns. Probably the most widely-known of these was Draw thou my soul, O Christ, but this one caught my eye for today. It first appeared in her book Wild Roses of Cape Ann (1880), and may have been first used as a hymn in the Song-Hymnal of Praise and Joy (1924), a collection edited by Pluma Brown which included twelve hymns by Larcom, perhaps more than any other hymnal.

Into the ocean of thy peace,
Almighty One, my thoughts would flow;
Bid their unrestful murmurings cease,
And thy great calmness let me know.

The world is bright and glad in thee!
No hopeless gloom its face enshrouds;
Joy lights the mountains, thrills the sea,
And weaves bright tints through all the clouds.

O God, how beautiful is life,
Since thou its soul and sweetness art!
How dims its trifling fret and strife
In thy all-harmonizing heart!

One soul with thee forevermore,
Borne high beyond the gulfs of death --
A joy that ripples on thy shore --
With life's vast hymn I blend my breath.

Lucy Larcom, 1880
Tune: TALLIS' CANON (L.M.)
Thomas Tallis, 1560

By the time she wrote this text Larcom was living once more in Beverly; its title in Wild Roses of Cape Ann was "A Sea-Side Hymn." In Pluma Brown's hymnal it is matched to the tune ERNAN by Lowell Mason, but I chose the older tune by Tallis for its somewhat gentler mood (and because it's more likely to be sung again with a better-known tune).


P.S. I know there are several new readers here in recent months, and you might be curious about the More Voices Found heading used on the last two days. It's an ongoing theme at CWS and I've written about it in two previous entries: here and here. And if you click on the tag below you can find several of the reclaimed works by women.

All Speech Flow to Music (Day Twelve)

On the last day of Christmas we look back to the message of the angels, but also forward to apply it to our own time.

The Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier was primarily known for his anti-slavery activities; they were the focus of his poetry and his editorship of The National Era and other abolitionist journals. Some biographical sources suggest that Whittier's political activity ceased after the Civil War, but this text from 1873, adapted from his poem A Christmas Carmen, shows his support for the cause of peace.

Sound over all waters, reach out from all lands,
The chorus of voices, the clasping of hands;
Sing hymns that were sung by the stars of the morn,
Sing songs of the angels when Jesus was born!

Sing concord of nations! in chorals of love
Sing out the war-vulture and sing in the dove,
The long night is ending and dawn has begun;
Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun!

Blow, bugles of battle, the marches of peace;
East, west, north, and south let the long quarrel cease
Sing the song of great joy from the angels begun,
All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one!

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1873; adapt.
Tune: LANSING (11.11.11.11.)
Charles H. Gabriel, 1912

This tune by Charles Gabriel first appeared in the Presbyterian Psalter (1912) used with a paraphrase of Psalm 24, Ye gates lift your heads, the glad summons obey. Whittier's text has also been sung to ST DENIO and CRADLE SONG.

In 1982, the text was set to music by composer Paul Halley, organist and music director at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in honor of Coretta Scott King, who was coming to preach at the cathedral. The piece was first sung on that occasion, and on others since.

Finally, here we are at the end of our twelve days of Christmas music. Hope you have found something interesting that you had not seen before. It's been fun for me but I'm not sure I'll jump to do another long daily series anytime soon!

John Greenleaf Whittier

Apparently continuing John Week at C.W.S. (John the Baptist, John Chandler, John Ellerton...) we come to John Greenleaf Whittier (December 17, 1807 - September 7, 1892), born into a Quaker family in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

When he was fifteen, a teacher loaned him a volume of poetry by Robert Burns, which he later credited with inspiring his own poetic efforts. A few years later, one of his sisters submitted a poem of his to the Free Press, a weekly paper published by William Lloyd Garrison. The poem was printed, launching Whittier's literary career as well as a long-lasting friendship with Garrison, strengthened by both men's commitment to the cause of abolition.

Whittier was a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and became editor of the National Era in 1847, one of the most influential abolitionist newspapers. His poetry and articles were also frequently published in the Atlantic Monthly.

Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson were the first editors to turn Whittier's poetry into hymns in their two hymnals, but other hymnals were soon using his texts as well. The hymns that are attributed to Whittier are often excerpted from longer poems, such as this one, six verses taken from the original thirty-seven verses of his poem Our Master.

Immortal love, forever full,
Forever flowing free,
Forever shared, forever whole,
A never-ebbing sea!

Our outward lips confess the name
All other names above;
Love only knows from whence it came,
And comprehends but love.

We may not climb the heavenly steeps
To bring you, Jesus, down;
In vain we search the lowest deeps,
For you no depths can drown.

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet,
A present help you'll be;
And faith still has its Olivet,
And love its Galilee.

The healing of your seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch you in life’s throng and press,
And we are whole again.

The letter fails, the systems fall,
And every symbol wanes;
The Spirit overshadowing all,
Eternal Love remains.

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1856; alt.
Tune: BISHOPTHORPE (C.M.)
Jeremiah Clarke, 17th c.

Whittier remains in many hymnals today. Just this last Sunday, a Whittier hymn sing was held at the Friends Meeting House in Amesbury, Massachusetts, where he worshipped.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Today of the commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Episcopal calendar of saints. It is also the fortieth anniversary of his assassination.

Dr. King's favorite hymn was reported to be Precious Lord, take my hand by Thomas Dorsey, written in 1932. I did not know until today that the tune was actually adapted by Dorsey from an earlier tune by George N. Allen called MAITLAND, first published in 1844.

Another appropriate hymn for today was written by the Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier, an activist for abolition.


O pure reformers! not in vain
Your trust in humankind;
The good which bloodshed could not gain,
Your peaceful zeal shall find.

The truths you urge are borne abroad
By every wind and tide;
The voice of nature and of God
Speaks out upon your side.

The weapons which your hands have found
Are those which heav'n has wrought:
Light, truth, and love -- your battleground,
The free, broad field of thought.

Press on! and if we may not share
The glory of your fight,
We'll ask at least, in earnest prayer,
That God will bless the right.

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1843; alt.
Tune: AZMON (C.M.)
Carl G. Glaser, 1828; arr. Lowell Mason, 1839

I chose AZMON for its vigor, but an alternate tune might be MARTYRDOM. A different mood, but still appropriate.

I know people will be singing today in honor of Dr. King and his work.