The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 5.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

[202] sportive childhood, and from blossoming sweetbrier, and from the grassy mound before me, I heard the whisper of one word only, and that word was peace.

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Chapter 2:

Some account of Peewawkin on the Tocketuck.

well and truly said the wise man of old, ‘Much study is a weariness to the flesh.’ Hard and close application through the winter had left me ill prepared to resist the baleful influences of a New England spring. I shrank alike from the storms of March, the capricious changes of April, and the sudden alternations of May, from the blandest of southwest breezes to the terrible and icy eastern blasts which sweep our seaboard like the fabled sanser, or wind of death. The buoyancy and vigor, the freshness and beauty of life seemed leaving me. The flesh and the spirit were no longer harmonious. I was tormented by a nightmare feeling of the necessity of exertion, coupled with a sense of utter inability. A thousand plans for my own benefit, or the welfare of those dear to me, or of my fellow-men at large, passed before me; but I had no strength to lay hold of the good angels and detain them until they left their blessing. The trumpet sounded in my ears for the tournament of life; but I could not bear the weight of my armor. In the midst of duties and responsibilities which I clearly comprehended, I found