| |
| ABOVE them spread a stranger sky; | |
| Around, the sterile plain; | |
| The rock-bound coast rose frowning nigh; | |
| Beyond,—the wrathful main: | |
| Chill remnants of the wintry snow | 5 |
| Still choked the encumbered soil, | |
| Yet forth those Pilgrim Fathers go | |
| To mark their future toil. | |
| |
| ’Mid yonder vale their corn must rise | |
| In summer’s ripening pride, | 10 |
| And there the church-spire woo the skies | |
| Its sister-school beside. | |
| Perchance mid England’s velvet green | |
| Some tender thought reposed, | |
| Though nought upon their stoic mien | 15 |
| Such soft regret disclosed. | |
| |
| When sudden from the forest wide | |
| A red-browed chieftain came, | |
| With towering form, and haughty stride, | |
| And eye like kindling flame: | 20 |
| No wrath he breathed, no conflict sought, | |
| To no dark ambush drew, | |
| But simply to the Old World brought | |
| The welcome of the New. | |
| |
| That welcome was a blast and ban | 25 |
| Upon thy race unborn; | |
| Was there no seer,—thou fated Man!— | |
| Thy lavish zeal to warn? | |
| Thou in thy fearless faith didst hail | |
| A weak, invading band, | 30 |
| But who shall heed thy children’s wail | |
| Swept from their native land? | |
| |
| Thou gav’st the riches of thy streams, | |
| The lordship o’er thy waves, | |
| The region of thine infant dreams | 35 |
| And of thy father’s graves,— | |
| But who to yon proud mansions, piled | |
| With wealth of earth and sea, | |
| Poor outcast from thy forest wild, | |
| Say, who shall welcome thee? | 40 |
| |
