CLARK'S ISLAND.

But bright the star that lent its ray
To bear the traveller on his way
From childhood's seat,

That lighted up so fair a day
For his retreat.

Oh, who would ask a holier bed
Than where he laid his weary head
And nobly slept;

For though the Pilgrim long hath fled,
His spirit's left.

Then hail the spot, where first the sound
Of freedom shook the sacred ground

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,
There, long by storm and billow driven,
With mast and sail to fragments riven,
The wanderers sought its welcome shore,
And safe their struggling shallop moor;
There watchful met the earliest dawn,
When first revealed the Sabbath morn,
That prayer and praise might o'er the deep
Harmonious strains in concert keep.

New England's pristine Sabbath-day
On Time's dark flood has passed away;
The Pilgrim chant is heard no more,
That echoed once upon that shore;
And hushed the lips whose accents gave
Their grateful notes to wind and wave;
But still the Sabbath's cheerful hours
Shall claim and bless our noblest powers,
And wing our thoughts to scenes divine,
Where faith and hope no more decline.

*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,
The Pilgrims met for prayer;

And here, their God adoring,
They stood in open air :
When breaking day they greeted,
And when its close was calm,

The leafless woods repeated

The music of their psalm.

Not thus, O God, to praise Thee
Do we, their children, throng;
The temple's arch we raise Thee
Gives back our choral song.
Yet, on the winds that bore Thee
Their worship and their prayers,

May ours come up before Thee

From hearts as true as theirs!

What have we, Lord, to bind us
To this, the Pilgrims' shore?

Their hill of graves behind us,

Their watery way before;

PILGRIMS AT PRAYER.

33

The wintry surge that dashes
Against the rocks they trod,
Their memory and their ashes,-
Be Thou their guard, O God!

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.