 | Poems of home and country |  |
132
THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
IN MEMORY OF THEIR LANDING UPON PLYMOUTH ROCK ON THE 21st DAY OF DECEMBER, 1620.
They left old England's cultured homes,
Its broad green fields, its sunny skies,
Its tall cathedral-spires and domes,
As the first pair left Paradise.
Its broad green fields, its sunny skies,
Its tall cathedral-spires and domes,
As the first pair left Paradise.
They found a forest, wild and bleak,
Cold, threatening skies and frozen sod,—
Brave noble souls, resolved to seek
Deliverance from the oppressor's rod.
Cold, threatening skies and frozen sod,—
Brave noble souls, resolved to seek
Deliverance from the oppressor's rod.
They left the dear ancestral shrines,
The altars where their fathers bowed,
Graves where their hallowed dust reclines,
The fields they reaped, the hills they ploughed.
The altars where their fathers bowed,
Graves where their hallowed dust reclines,
The fields they reaped, the hills they ploughed.
They found a stormy, cheerless coast,
Swept by fierce winds and savage men;
Nature's rude growth, the heathen's boast;
The rockbound shores, the wild beast's den.
Swept by fierce winds and savage men;
Nature's rude growth, the heathen's boast;
The rockbound shores, the wild beast's den.
Yet came they fearless, bold, and brave,—
Not theirs to bow to men the knee,
Unfettered as the ocean wave,—
God's freemen, whom the truth made free.
Not theirs to bow to men the knee,
Unfettered as the ocean wave,—
God's freemen, whom the truth made free.
The wintry forests' dim defiles
Woke, their triumphant psalms to hear,
And rocks, and hills, and distant isles
Echoed their pilgrim-hymns of cheer.
Woke, their triumphant psalms to hear,
And rocks, and hills, and distant isles
Echoed their pilgrim-hymns of cheer.
133
O wise to plan, O justly famed!
O strong in patient faith to wait!
These are the noble sires who framed
And built New England's early state.
O strong in patient faith to wait!
These are the noble sires who framed
And built New England's early state.
| Poems of home and country | |