John Greenleaf Whittier
1807-1892 19th century
Silence asked for in the middle of one's own noise.
Who was John Greenleaf Whittier?
The son of Quaker farmers in Massachusetts, he had little schooling, made shoes to pay for his terms, then became a journalist. He gave thirty years to the abolition of slavery: his press was burned in Philadelphia, he was chased by a mob in New Hampshire, and he long believed he had sacrificed his poetry to the cause. He never married, and late in life wrote the long poems of the farm and the winter. His praying verse comes from a man used to the silence of the Quaker meeting.
In their own words
Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways; reclothe us in our rightful mind, in purer lives Thy service find, in deeper reverence, praise.
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.
I know not where His islands lift their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift beyond His love and care.