Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79. | | | | Introductory to America | | Columbus and the Mayflower | | Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton (1809–1885) |
| | | O LITTLE fleet! that on thy quest divine | |
| Sailedst from Palos one bright autumn morn, | |
| Say, has old Ocean’s bosom ever borne | |
| A freight of faith and hope to match with thine? | |
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| Say, too, has Heaven’s high favor given again | 5 |
| Such consummation of desire as shone | |
| About Columbus when he rested on | |
| The new-found world and married it to Spain? | |
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| Answer,—thou refuge of the freeman’s need,— | |
| Thou for whose destinies no kings looked out, | 10 |
| Nor sages to resolve some mighty doubt,— | |
| Thou simple Mayflower of the salt-sea mead! | |
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| When thou wert wafted to that distant shore, | |
| Gay flowers, bright birds, rich odors met thee not; | |
| Stern Nature hailed thee to a sterner lot,— | 15 |
| God gave free earth and air, and gave no more. | |
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| Thus to men cast in that heroic mould | |
| Came empire such as Spaniard never knew, | |
| Such empire as beseems the just and true; | |
| And at the last, almost unsought, came gold. | 20 |
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| But He who rules both calm and stormy days | |
| Can guard that people’s heart, that nation’s health, | |
| Safe on the perilous heights of power and wealth, | |
| As in the straitness of the ancient ways. | | | | |
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