CLARK'S ISLAND. But bright the star that lent its ray That lighted up so fair a day Oh, who would ask a holier bed For though the Pilgrim long hath fled, Then hail the spot, where first the sound In early days, And filled the hills and forest round With gladsome praise. 29 HERSEY B. GOODWIN. LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS. WILD was the day; the wintry sea Moaned sadly on New England's strand When first, the thoughtful and the free, Our fathers trod the desert land. They little thought how pure a light, With years, should gather round that day; How love should keep their memories bright, How wide a realm their sons should sway. Green are their bays, and greener still Shall round their spreading fame be wreathed; And regions now untrod shall thrill With reverence when their names are breathed. Till where the sun, with softer fires, Looks on the vast Pacific's sleep, The children of the Pilgrim sires This hallowed day like us shall keep.* W. C. BRYANT. "FOREFATHERS' DAY," December the 22nd, the anniversary of the landing at the Plymouth Rock. THE PILGRIMS' FIRST SABBATH. THE modest Isle of yonder Bay,* Screened from the rougher blasts and spray, New England's pristine Sabbath-day *Clark's Island. Then came the Sabbath; they had been three days from their friends; the Captain was in haste to be gone, but nothing would induce them to move. A sentinel was posted, and the party, under the shelter of a gray rock, kept the first Christian Sabbath in New England. PILGRIMS AT PRAYER. THE winds and waves were roaring, And here, their God adoring, The leafless woods repeated The music of their psalm. Not thus, O God, to praise Thee May ours come up before Thee From hearts as true as theirs! What have we, Lord, to bind us Their hill of graves behind us, Their watery way before; PILGRIMS AT PRAYER. 33 The wintry surge that dashes We would not, Holy Father, Forsake this hallow'd spot, Till on that shore we gather Where graves and griefs are not,— The shore where true devotion Shall rear no pillar'd shrine, And see no other ocean Than that of love divine. REV. JOHN PIERPOINT. |