In his poem “The Haschish”, published in the mid-19th century, the plant appears as a maker of visions: dervishes, dancers, paradise, demons, Arabian nights, impossible splendour. But Whittier’s target is not the plant itself.

It is illusion.

A Quaker poet, abolitionist and moral reformer, Whittier uses hashish as a mirror for the fantasies of power. The poor man imagines himself a sultan. The ambitious man imagines himself chosen. Nations, rulers and crowds chase intoxicating dreams of greatness, purity, empire or destiny.

For LIBERA HERBA, this is why the poem belongs in Cultural Traces.

Cannabis enters American poetry not only as pleasure or danger, but as metaphor.

A plant that produces visions becomes a way to ask a harder question:

How much of politics is intoxication?

Factual Note

John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem “The Haschish” appears in his Anti-Slavery Poems / collected works. The poem explicitly refers to the “Haschish plant” and the visions associated with its eating, but uses hashish primarily as a metaphor for illusion, fantasy and moral/political delusion rather than as a personal drug confession.

John Greenleaf Whittier
1807–1892
American Quaker poet, abolitionist and reformer

Known as one of the major American fireside poets and a strong anti-slavery voice. His moral and political poetry often used religious, historical and Orientalist imagery to examine conscience, freedom and illusion.

John Greenleaf Whittier – the Haschish of power

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