THE PILGRIM FUNERAL.

45

When they laid his cold corpse low

In its dark and narrow cell, Heavy the mingled earth and snow Upon his coffin fell.

Weeping, they passed away,

And left him there alone,

With no mark to tell where their dead friend lay, But the mossy forest stone.

When the winter storms were gone,
And the strange birds sang around,
Green grass and violets sprung upon
That spot of holy ground.

And o'er him giant trees

Their proud arms toss'd on high,

And rustled music in the breeze

That wandered through the sky.

When these were overspread

With the leaves that autumn gave,

They bow'd them in the wind, and shed

Their leaves upon his grave.

These woods are perished now,

And that humble grave forgot,

And the yeoman sings as he draws his plough

O'er that once sacred spot.

46

THE PILGRIM FUNERAL.

Two centuries are flown

Since they laid his cold corpse low,

And his bones are mouldered to dust, and strewn To the breezes long ago.

And they who laid him there

That sad and suffering trainNow sleep in dust, to tell us where No lettered stones remain,

Their memory remains ;

And ever shall remain,

More lasting than the aged fanes

Of Egypt's storied plain.

JOHN H. BRYANT.

BURIAL HILL AT PLYMOUTH.*

THE Pilgrim Fathers-where are they?
The waves that brought them o'er
Still roll in the bay, and throw their spray,
As they break along the shore;-
Still roll in the bay as they rolled that day
When the Mayflower moored below,
When the sea around was black with storms,
And white the shore with snow.

The mists that wrapped the pilgrims' sleep
Still brood upon the tide ;

And his rocks yet keep their watch by the deep,
To stay its waves of pride:

But the snow-white sail, that he gave to the gale
When the heavens looked dark, is gone :-

As an angel's wing, through an opening cloud,
Is seen, and then withdrawn.

* COLE'S HILL, where the Pilgrims who died in the first winter were buried. Their graves were smoothed, lest the Indians should learn the great extent of mortality which prevailed. No traces now remain of these graves.

48

BURIAL HILL AT PLYMOUTH.

The pilgrim exile-sainted name!

The hill, whose icy brow

Rejoiced, when he came, in the morning's flame-
In the morning's flame burns now.
And the moon's cold light as it lay that night
On the hill-side and the sea,

Still lies where he laid his houseless head:

But the pilgrim—where is he?

The Pilgrim Fathers are at rest;

When summer's throned on high,

And the world's warm breast is in verdure dressed, Go, stand on the hill where they lie.

The earliest ray of the golden day

On that hallowed spot is cast;

And the evening sun, as he leaves the world,

Looks kindly on that spot last.

The pilgrim spirit has not fled,

It walks in noon's broad light;

And it watches the bed of the glorious dead,

With the holy stars, by night.

It watches the bed of the brave who have bled,
And shall guard this ice-bound shore

Till the waves of the bay, where the Mayflower lay,

Shall foam and freeze no more.

REV. J. PIERPOINT.