Explore "One of the Signers" by John Greenleaf Whittier on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Written for the unveiling of the statue of Josiah Bartlett at Amesbury, Mass., July 4, 1888. Governor Bartlett, who was a native of the town, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Amesbury or Ambresbury, so called from the "anointed stones" of the great Druidical temple near it, was the seat of one of the earliest religious houses in Britain. The tradition that the guilty wife of King Arthur fled thither for protection forms one of the finest passages in Tennyson's Idyls of the King.
O storied vale of Merrimac Rejoice through all thy shade and shine, And from his century's sleep call back A brave and honored son of thine.