The proudest now is but my peer,
The highest not more high;
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day, alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
My palace is the people’s hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the served shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man’s common sense
Against the pedant’s pride.
To-day shall simple manhood try
The strength of gold and land;
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!
While there’s a grief to seek redress,
Or balance to adjust,
Where weighs our living manhood less
Than Mammon’s vilest dust, —
While there’s a right to need my vote,
A wrong to sweep away,
Up! clouted knee and ragged coat!
A man’s a man to-day!
Suggestions
- Given that Whittier was a Quaker advocating the abolition of slavery, how do his views enlighten the theme that on Election Day all voters are equal?
- Whittier makes several contrasts/comparisons. Make a list of these. (Ex. great/small, nameless/known, etc.)
- Read other poems by Whittier.
- Learn more about elections in the United States.
- Whittier was known as one of the “fireside poets,” American poets that were popular in the late 1800s whose poems could be read by the entire family around the hearth. Other fireside poets include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Read at least one poem by each of these authors. Explain how how the themes are similar.
- Read a Whittier poem each day from Favorite Poems (20 poems/20 days). Then when are are finished copy your favorite.
- Create an author page for Whittier.
Additional Resources
Our Holidays in Poetry {Free eBook}
You’ll find many of the fireside poets in this free book.
Free Civic Studies Lesson 14: The Citizen
More about Whittier here.
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