38 The Rice Institute Pamphlet
movement with some interest.12 But when his poetic ambi-
tions failed to materialize, political hopes had been defeated,
and ill-health plagued his body, he returned to the Haverhill
farm in a receptive frame of mind for Garrison’s burning
letter which pleaded: “The cause is worthy of Gabriel—yea,
the God of hosts places himself at its head. Wliittier enlist—
Your talents, zeal, influence—all are needed.”13 The appeal
cut to the core of Whittier’s Quaker beliefs on slavery and
gave his susceptible, still uncertain, temperament a strength
and directness of purpose for which it had been searching.
So, the “dreamer born” left the “Muse’s haunts to turn / The
crank of opinion-mill” (“The Tent on the Beach”) and recon-
ciled his conflict between art and life, sense and spirit, desire
and duty. “The Reformer,” a poem typical of Whittier’s feel-
ings during the next twenty years, shows how far this trench-
ant devotion was to cany him. The reformer is the “strong
one” who destroys the godless shrines of men to build a better
future. Significantly, he lays waste not only the hypocritical
church and the various worldly monuments to sin, but he also
demolishes art with all her old treasures, ignoring the sad
surprise of “young romance.” Naive as the poem’s belief in
the efficacy of moral reform may be, it undoubtedly does re-
flect Whittier’s attitude at this time.14
The beauty of ethical action and self-sacrifice became
major themes in Whittier’s poetry. Scores of poems praised
a beauty that “Walks hand in hand with duty” (My Tri-
umph”) and repudiated the “hands that idly fold, / And bps
that woo the reed’s accord” (“The Summons”). He entitled
his 1850 volume of poetry Songs of Labor rather than Songs
of Love, since his were only simple poems of rural toil
written to show “The unsung beauty hid life’s common