Tent on the Beach
Burned all our inland valleys through,
Three friends, the guests of summer time,
Pitched their white tent where sea-winds blew."
—WHITTIER
This poem was written in 1867.
The "three friends" are James T. Fields, Bayard Taylor, and Whittier himself.
From cares that wear the life away,
To eat the lotus of the Nile,
And drink the poppies of Cathay."
The "lotus" is an Egyptian plant very like our water-lily. It is fabled, if eaten, to make one forget his native country, or cease to desire to return to it: by "lotus-eater" is meant one who gives himself up to pleasure-seeking.
In which it seemed always afternoon."
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotus-eaters came."
And all at once they sang, 'Our island home
Is far beyond the wave: we will no longer roam.'"
—TENNYSON
Opium is the chief ingredient of the poppy, which grows luxuriantly in the East Indies, and is largely imported into China: It is a narcotic, and makes one insensible to, or forgetful of, pain.
A ready credence in his looks,
A lettered magnate, lording o'er
An ever-widening realm of books."
James T. Fields, A.M., is referred to here and in the next two verses.
He was editor of "The Atlantic Monthly" for eight years, was a poet, essayist, and extensive publisher. Few men have exercised a more important influence over American literature. He was born in New Hampshire, 1817, died in Boston, 1881.
Converge as in a Leyden jar:
The old, dead authors throng him round about,
And Elzevir's gray ghosts from leathern graves look out."
The "Leyden jar" is used to store electricity, and is so named because the first one was made in Leyden, Holland.
"Elzevir" is the name of a celebrated family of printers in Holland. They published an edition of the Latin classics, bound in leather, between 1592-1626, an edition unrivaled for beauty and correctness.
They published also twelve hundred and thirteen other works with the greatest care. For more than a century this family has ceased to have any connection with printing.
"He knew each living pundit well."
A "pundit" means a learned man or woman.
Bowed the dazed pedant from his room."
Rhadamanthus was a mythical personage, the brother of Minos. So great was his reputation for justice during his life, that after death he was appointed one of the three judges in the underworld, the other two being Minos and AEocus.
A "pedant" is one who makes a display of learning in an improper manner.
The lettered world as he had done,
And see the lords of song without
Their singing robes and garlands on;
With Wordsworth paddle Rydal mere,
Taste rugged Elliott's home-brewed beer,
And with the ears of Rogers, at fourscore,
Hear Garrick's buskined tread and Walpole's wit once more."
William "Wordsworth" was a famous English poet born in 1770, died in 1850. His home was at Rydal-mere, a lake near by.
"Elliott" was a poet highly praised by Carlyle, engaged with John Bright and Richard Cobden in the repeal of the English Corn Laws.
"Garrick" was the most celebrated actor on the English stage from 1716 to 1799.
"Walpole" was an English statesman from 1676 to 1745.
Who, with a mission to fulfil,
Had left the Muses' haunts, to turn
The crank of an opinion-mill."
John G. Whittier refers to himself in this and in the three succeeding verses. He was born in Haverhill, Mass., 1807, in the Society of Friends. He worked on a farm in his youth. In 1835 he was elected to the Massachusetts Legislature; in 1836 appointed secretary of the Antislavery Society, and editor of the "Pennsylvania Freeman" in Philadelphia; in 1840 he removed to Amesbury, Mass., where he still resides. He is one of the most popular poets of America.
The winged Hippogriff Reform."
"Hippogriff," a fabulous animal represented as a winged horse, with the head of a griffin.
By tropic sun and boreal frost,
So travelled, there was scarce a land
Or people left him to exhaust."
Bayard Taylor, the great American traveller and statesman, is here referred to. When quite a young man he took a journey through Europe on foot. On coming home, he published a history of his travels in a book called "Views Afoot."
He afterwards travelled all over the world, and published various books of travels; also wrote four novels and several volumes of poems, and a translation of Goethe's "Faust." He was sent as American minister to Berlin in 1877, and died there, Dec. 19, 1878, aged about fifty-three years.
On Puck's air-girdle slid at ease."
"Puck," the same as Hobgoblin or Robin Goodfellow, a fairy and merry wanderer.
The motto of the Garter's Knight."
This refers to the "Order of the Garter," instituted by Edward III. of England.
"Honi soit qui mal y pense" ("Evil to him who evil thinks") is the motto not only of the "Garter Knight," but is also seen on the royal arms of Great Britain.
Hid by their innocence, as Gyges by his ring."
"Gyges' ring," according to Plato, rendered the wearer invisible. By this talisman he is said to have entered the chamber of the Lydian King Candaules, unseen, and to have murdered him, reigning in his stead from 716 to 678 B.C.
With an old Triton at the oar."
"Triton," a son of Neptune, is represented in mythology as a fish with a human head. It is to this sea-god that the roaring of the ocean is attributed,--"Triton blowing through his shell."
"And heard the ghosts on Haley's Isle complain."
"Haley's Isle," one of the group called the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New England: the crew of a wrecked Spanish vessel were buried on the island.
The three poems introduced,--"The Wreck of River-mouth," "The Grave by the Lake," and "The Brother of Mercy,"--though poetically assigned to "the guests," are of Whittier's own composition.