How Mary Grew

John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)



With wisdom far beyond her years,
And graver than her wondering peers,
So strong, so mild, combining still
The tender heart and queenly will,
To conscience and to duty true,
So, up from childhood, Mary Grew!

Then in her gracious womanhood
She gave her days to doing good.
She dared the scornful laugh of men,
The hounding mob, the slanderer's pen.
She did the work she found to do,--
A Christian heroine, Mary Grew!

The freed slave thanks her; blessing comes
To her from women's weary homes;
The wronged and erring find in her
Their censor mild and comforter.
The world were safe if but a few
Could grow in grace as Mary Grew!

So, New Year's Eve, I sit and say,
By this low wood-fire, ashen gray;
Just wishing, as the night shuts down,
That I could hear in Boston town,
In pleasant Chestnut Avenue,
From her own lips, how Mary Grew!

And hear her graceful hostess tell
The silver-voiced oracle
Who lately through her parlors spoke
As through Dodona's sacred oak,
A wiser truth than any told
By Sappho's lips of ruddy gold,--
The way to make the world anew,
Is just to grow--as Mary Grew

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 06, 2023

1:02 min read
38

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBCC DDEECC XXFFCC GGHHCC XXIIJJCC
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,062
Words 202
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6, 8

John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. more…

All John Greenleaf Whittier poems | John Greenleaf Whittier Books

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