Excerpt
THE PILGRIM'S VISION
IN the hour of twilight shadowsThe Pilgrim sire looked out;He thought of the "bloudy Salvages"That lurked all round about,Of Wituwamet's pictured knifeAnd Pecksuot's whooping shout;For the baby's limbs were feeble,Though his father's arms were stout.
His home was a freezing cabin,Too bare for the hungry rat;Its roof was thatched with ragged grass,And bald enough of that;The hole that served for casementWas glazed with an ancient hat,And the ice was gently thawingFrom the log whereon he sat.
Along the dreary landscapeHis eyes went to and fro,
The trees all clad in icicles,The streams that did not flow;A sudden thought flashed o'er him,—A dream of long ago,—He smote his leathern jerkin,And murmured, "Even so!"
"Come hither, God-be-Glorified,And sit upon my knee;Behold the dream unfolding,Whereof I spake to theeBy the winter's hearth in LeydenAnd on the stormy sea.True is the dream's beginning,—So may its ending be!
"I saw in the naked forestOur scattered remnant cast,A screen of shivering branchesBetween them and the blast;The snow was falling round them,The dying fell as fast;I looked to see them perish,When lo, the vision passed.
"Again mine eyes were opened;—The feeble had waxed strong,The babes had grown to sturdy men,The remnant was a throng;By shadowed lake and winding stream,And all the shores along,The howling demons quaked to hearThe Christian's godly song.
"They slept, the village fathers,By river, lake, and shore,When far adown the steep of TimeThe vision rose once moreI saw along the winter snowA spectral column pour,And high above their broken ranksA tattered flag they bore.
"Their Leader rode before them,Of bearing calm and high,The light of Heaven's own kindlingThroned in his awful eye;These were a Nation's championsHer dread appeal to try.God for the right! I faltered,And lo, the train passed by.
"Once more;—the strife is ended,The solemn issue tried,The Lord of Hosts, his mighty armHas helped our Israel's side;Gray stone and grassy hillockTell where our martyrs died,But peaceful smiles the harvest,And stainless flows the tide.
"A crash, as when some swollen cloudCracks o'er the tangled treesWith side to side, and spar to spar,Whose smoking decks are these?I know Saint George's blood-red cross,Thou Mistress of the Seas,But what is she whose streaming barsRoll out before the breeze?
"Ah, well her iron ribs are knit,Whose thunders strive to quellThe bellowing throats, the blazing lips,That pealed the Armada's knell!The mist was cleared,—a wreath of starsRose o'er the crimsoned swell,And, wavering from its haughty peak,The cross of England fell!
"O trembling Faith! though dark the morn,A heavenly torch is thine;While feebler races melt away,And paler orbs decline,Still shall the fiery pillar's rayAlong thy pathway shine,To light the chosen tribe that soughtThis Western Palestine.
"I see the living tide roll on;It crowns with flaming towersThe icy capes of Labrador,The Spaniard's 'land of flowers'...!