Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911)
Higginson’s nature poetry is overshadowed by so many fascinating aspects of his life. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Higginson’s ancestors were part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was also related to the founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and a third great-grandfather was John Wentworth, Lieutenant-Governor of New Hampshire.
His mother’s influence led him to become an active abolitionist and activist for women’s rights. His pursuits brought him into contacts with the likes of Theodore Parker, a famed Minister and abolitionist himself, and relative of Captain John Parker who led the Lexington Minutemen and the Battle of Lexington at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. He was a Unitarian pastor and colonel of a black regiment in South Carolina during the Civil War. He joined Jack London and Upton Sinclair in a Socialist Society in 1905, and mentored Emily Dickinson. This man’s fascinating life reflects the most important aspects of nineteenth century life in America. Mary Thacher Higginson’s book, Thomas Wentworth Higginson – The Story of His Life (1914), provides these facts.
His love of Nature was apparent in many of his poems and books. The Outdoor Papers, written in 1863, is one of my favorites.
"Ode to a Butterfly" appeared in The Century in 1889. This is a beautiful lyric poem addressed to a butterfly, but revealing the author's amazement at its beauty and freedom. One has to pause at the phrase, "But thou art nature's freeman, - free to stray." Are these the words of a careful observer of Nature or those of an abolitionist seeking analogies.
"Ode to a Butterfly"
Thou spark of life, that wavest wings of gold!
Thou songless wanderer mid the songful birds!
With nature's secrets in thy tints unrolled
Through gorgeous cipher, past the reach of words,
Yet dear to every child
In glad pursuit beguiled,
Living his unspoiled days mid flowers and flocks and herds
Thou winged blossom! liberated thing!
What secret tie binds thee to other flowers
Still held within the garden's fostering?
Will they too soar with the completed hours,
Take flight and be like thee
Irrevocably free,
Hovering at will o'er their parental bowers?
Or is thy luster drawn from heavenly hues,
A sumptuous drifting fragment of the sky
With sudden splendor; and the tree-tops high
Grasp that swift blazonry,
Then lend those tints to thee -
On thee to float a few short hours, and die?
Birds have their nests; they rear their eager young
And flit on errands all the livelong day;
Each fieldmouse keeps the homestead whence it sprung;
But thou art nature's freeman, - free to stray
Unfettered through the wood
Seeking thine airy food,
The sweetness spiced on every blossomed spray.
The garden one wide banquet spreads for thee,
O daintiest reveler of the joyous earth!
One drop of honey gives satiety,
A second draught would drug thee past all mirth.
Thy feast no orgy shows,
Thy calm eyes never close,
Thou soberest sprite to which the sun gives birth!
And yet the soul of man upon thy wings
Forever soars in aspiration; thou
His emblem of the new career that springs
When death's arrest bids all his spirit bow.
He seeks his hope in thee
Of immortality.
Symbol of life! me with such faith endow.