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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  The Quaker Alumni

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

New England: Newport, R. I.

The Quaker Alumni

By John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)

(Excerpt)

SO the man be a man, let him worship, at will,

In Jerusalem’s courts, or on Gerizim’s hill.

When she makes up her jewels, what cares yon good town

For the Baptist of Wayland, the Quaker of Brown?

And this green, favored island, so fresh and sea-blown,

When she counts up the worthies her annals have known,

Never waits for the pitiful gaugers of sect

To measure her love and mete out her respect.

Three shades at this moment seem walking her strand,

Each with head halo-crowned, and with palms in his hand,—

Wise Berkeley, grave Hopkins, and, smiling serene

On prelate and puritan, Channing is seen.