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 And sought a home and freedom here 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 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, While here their evening prayer arose, * 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, Who came to plant the Gospel here With humble prayer and fasting, In every strait and grief, Their Cov'nant God o'ershadow'd them, Of fair New England's glory They laid the corner stone; Their grateful sons shall own. If greatness be in daring, Our Pilgrim sires were great, Disease and famine wait; STORY OF THE PILGRIMS. 63 And oft their treach'rous foes combine While founding here their commonwealth Though seeming over zealous In things by us deem'd light, They were but duly jealous Of Power usurping Right. To worship here their God in peace 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, 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. |