Thenceforth, until her death, she was her brother's close companion. The playmate of his childhood became the adviser of his riper years, the sharer of his sympathies, hopes, and aims. Happy lives are generally uneventful, except, indeed, in what constitutes their best portion--the pleasant intercourse, the loving ministries which go to make life so truly worth living.
With such inmates we are sure that the poet's home at Amesbury was supremely blessed--that the years passed gently and time touched kindly. But the happy circle gradually thinned. A few years after settling at Amesbury the cherished aunt died; some years later--in 1857--the mother. From thenceforth until her own death in 1864, Elizabeth seems to have been her brother's sole companion.
When Whittier's sister died her memory lived. The empty home seems to have carried back his mind to his earlier home in the quiet valley where his sister shared his woodland rambles, and where the icy grasp of winter imprisoned the complete family round the glowing hearth. It was in the year following his sister's death Whittier wrote the poem before referred to, "Snowbound," which is at once fondly reminiscent of bygone days and touched with a tender memory of his latest loss. He says:--
As one who held herself a part Of what she saw, and let her heart Against the household bosom lean, Upon the motley-braided mat Our youngest and our dearest sat, Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, Now bathed within the fadeless green And holy peace, of Paradise. Oh, looking from some heavenly hill, Or from the shade of saintly palms, Or silver reach of river calms, Do those large eyes behold me still? With me one little year ago-- The chill weight of the winter snow For months upon her grave has lain: And now, when summer south winds blow And brier and harebell bloom again, I tread the pleasant paths we trod, I see the violet-sprinkled sod Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak The hillside flowers she loved to seek, Yet following me where'er I went With dark eyes full of love's content. The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills The air with sweetness; all the hills Stretch green to June's unclouded sky; But still I wait with ear and eye For something gone which should be nigh, A loss in all familiar things, In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. And yet, dear heart, remembering thee, Am I not richer than of old? Safe in thy immortality, What change can reach the wealth I hold? What chance can mar the pearl and gold Thy love hath left in trust for me? And while in life's late afternoon, Where cool and long the shadows grow, I walk to meet the night that soon Shall shape and shadow overflow, I cannot feel that thou art far, Since near at need the angels are; And when the sunset gates unbar, Shall I not see thee waiting stand, And, white against the evening star, The welcome of thy beckoning hand?