STORY OF THE PILGRIMS.

Written in the year 1820.

COME, listen to my story,

Though often told before,

Of men who pass'd to glory

Through toil and travail sore;

Of men who did for conscience sake
Their native land forego,

And sought a home and freedom here
Two hundred years ago.*

O, 'twas no earthborn passion

That bade the adventurers stray;

The world and all its fashion

With them had passed away.

A voice from heaven bade them look
Above the things below,
When here they sought a resting place,
Two hundred years ago.

O, dark the scene and dreary,

When here they set them down;

Of storms and billows weary,

And chilled with winter's frown.

Deep moan'd the forest to the wind,
Loud howl'd the savage foe,

While here their evening prayer arose,
Two hundred years ago.

* A.D. 1620.

62

STORY OF THE PILGRIMS.

"Twould drown the heart in sorrow

To tell of all their woes;

No respite could they borrow,

But from the grave's repose.

Yet nought could daunt the Pilgrim band,
Or sink their courage low,

Who came to plant the Gospel here
Two hundred years ago.

With humble prayer and fasting,

In every strait and grief,
They sought the Everlasting,
And found a sure relief.

Their Cov'nant God o'ershadow'd them,
Their shield from every foe,
And gave them here a dwelling-place
Two hundred years ago.

Of fair New England's glory

They laid the corner stone;
This praise, in deathless story,

Their grateful sons shall own.
Prophetic, they foresaw in time,
A mighty state should grow,
From them, a few, faint Pilgrims here,
Two hundred years ago.

If greatness be in daring,

Our Pilgrim sires were great,
Whose sojourn here, unsparing

Disease and famine wait;

STORY OF THE PILGRIMS.

63

And oft their treach'rous foes combine
To lay the stranger low,

While founding here their commonwealth
Two hundred years ago.

Though seeming over zealous

In things by us deem'd light,

They were but duly jealous

Of Power usurping Right.
They nobly chose to part with all
Most dear to men below,

To worship here their God in peace
Two hundred years ago.

From seeds they sowed with weeping,

Our richest harvests rise; We still the fruits are reaping

Of Pilgrim enterprise.

Then grateful we to them will pay

The debt of fame we owe, Who planted here the tree of life

Two hundred years ago.

As comes this period yearly,

Around our cheerful fires, We'll think and tell how dearly

Our comforts cost our sires.

For them we'll wake the votive song,
And bid the canvas glow,

Who fix'd the home of freedom here

Two hundred years ago.

REV. DR. FLINT.

PILGRIM INFLUENCE.

WE owe allegiance to the State; but deeper, truer, more, To the sympathies that God hath set within our spirits'

core ;

Our country claims our fealty; we grant it so, but then Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us

men.

He's true to God who's true to man; wherever wrong is done,

To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the all-beholding sun,

That wrong is also done to us; and they are slaves most base,

Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their race.

God works for all. Ye cannot bear the hope of being free

With parallels of latitude, with mountain-range or sea. Put golden padlocks on Truth's lips, be callous as ye

will,

From soul to soul o'er all the world, leaps one electric

thrill.

PILGRIM INFLUENCE.

65

Chain down your slaves with ignorance; ye cannot

keep apart,

With all your craft of tyranny, the human heart from

heart.

When first the Pilgrims landed on the Bay State's iron shore,

The Word went forth that slavery should one day be no more.*

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

* It is a striking fact that the first cargo of African slaves was landed from an English ship at the Virginian Settlement in the year 1620-the very year in which the Pilgrim Fathers landed in Plymouth Bay, New England; so that slavery, as a system, and pilgrim principles were simultaneously planted in American soil, to carry on henceforth an irreconcilable conflict, until one or other of them shall be master of the field. It may temper the first feelings of shame which we, as Englishmen, experience when we reflect that we innoculated our American colonies with the virus of slavery, thrusting it upon some against their just protest, to reflect also that it was Englishmen (though proscribed and expatriated) who introduced into America the principles which must finally destroy slavery there and elsewhere. The operation of those principles have extirpated it in the Northern States, have prevented its blight from resting on the West, and will ultimately compass its destruction in the Southern States, of which the triumph of LINCOLN and HAMLIN, by the suffrages of the whole Union, may be accepted as the omen.

It may be interesting to mention that the first Stone of the Memorial Building in Southwark was laid by CYRUS HAMLIN, D.D., first cousin to HAMLIN, the Vice-President Elect of the United States.