The Anniversaries Poems in Commemoration of Great Men and Great Events. By Thomas H. Gill |
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December 11.
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December 11.
THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
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On this day, 1620, the Puritan Voyagers on board the May Flower landed on the New England coast where Plymouth now stands.
“Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, and Thy glory unto
their children.”—
Psalm xc. 16.
Mid that drear winter, from that stormy sea,
The Pilgrims passëd to that barren shore:
No field, no stream remembered tenderly,
No city bright a smile of welcome wore.
Their weary ears oppressed by ocean's roar,
No sweet familiar sounds were there to bless;
Into that desert drear their all they bore:
They came their souls in freedom to possess,
To wait upon their Lord there in the wilderness.
The Pilgrims passëd to that barren shore:
No field, no stream remembered tenderly,
No city bright a smile of welcome wore.
Their weary ears oppressed by ocean's roar,
No sweet familiar sounds were there to bless;
Into that desert drear their all they bore:
They came their souls in freedom to possess,
To wait upon their Lord there in the wilderness.
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They came from happy fields, from streams beloved,
From smiling homesteads for their Lord's dear sake.
Would not the Presence Bright that with them moved
Shine over them beside strange stream and lake,
Their Father-Land the unknown desert make?
O stern their toil! yet would He set at nought
The travail sore He bade them undertake?
O! would He not appear in what they wrought?
The Task-Master Divine their tears, their toil they brought.
From smiling homesteads for their Lord's dear sake.
Would not the Presence Bright that with them moved
Shine over them beside strange stream and lake,
Their Father-Land the unknown desert make?
O stern their toil! yet would He set at nought
The travail sore He bade them undertake?
O! would He not appear in what they wrought?
The Task-Master Divine their tears, their toil they brought.
They dreamed not of the glory that would be;
They dreamed not of the nation to be born;
They dreamed not of the noontide majesty
That would blaze forth from their beclouded morn.
Not by Hope's glowing fingers forth were drawn
The cities bright which throng that lonely shore,
The robes imperial by their children worn,
The golden gifts those deserts drear outpour,
The fulness of the strength, the fulness of the store!
They dreamed not of the nation to be born;
They dreamed not of the noontide majesty
That would blaze forth from their beclouded morn.
Not by Hope's glowing fingers forth were drawn
The cities bright which throng that lonely shore,
The robes imperial by their children worn,
The golden gifts those deserts drear outpour,
The fulness of the strength, the fulness of the store!
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Not by this splendour were ye gladsome made,
Ye needed not to dream this golden dream,
O Pilgrims of the Lord! ye only prayed
His awful eye full on your work to beam.
The mighty births wherewith your toil might teem
Your eyes required not: O rich overflow
Of glorious cheer your work divine to deem,
His pleasure in your travail sore to know,
At His command to toil, beneath His smile to glow!
Ye needed not to dream this golden dream,
O Pilgrims of the Lord! ye only prayed
His awful eye full on your work to beam.
The mighty births wherewith your toil might teem
Your eyes required not: O rich overflow
Of glorious cheer your work divine to deem,
His pleasure in your travail sore to know,
At His command to toil, beneath His smile to glow!
O lowly plight whence majesty has streamed!
O awful weakness that has grown to might!
O sires in sackcloth clad, on earth misdeemed,
Whose children rule so wide and gleam so bright!
O People of the West! no mean delight
So dear a day, so high a birth requires;
Look up unto your fathers' holy height,
And purge your spirits with the sacred fires
That burnëd in the souls of the great Pilgrim Sires!
O awful weakness that has grown to might!
O sires in sackcloth clad, on earth misdeemed,
Whose children rule so wide and gleam so bright!
O People of the West! no mean delight
So dear a day, so high a birth requires;
Look up unto your fathers' holy height,
And purge your spirits with the sacred fires
That burnëd in the souls of the great Pilgrim Sires!
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