Before him rolls the dark restless ocean;
Behind him stretch the cold and barren sands;
Wrapt in the mantle of his deep devotion,
The Pilgrim kneels, and clasps his lifted hands:
"God of our fathers, who hast safely brought us
Through seas and sorrows, famine, fire, and sword;
Who, in Thy mercies manifold has taught us
To
trust in Thee, our leader and our Lord;
"God, who hast sent Thy truth
to shine before us,
A fiery pillar, beaconing on the sea;
God, who hast spread Thy wings of mercy o'er us;
God, who hast set our children's children free,
"Freedom Thy new-born nation here shall cherish;
Grant us Thy covenant, unchanging, sure;
Earth shall decay; the firmament shall perish;
Freedom and Truth, immortal shall endure."
______________
Face to the Indian arrows,
Face to the Prussian guns.
From then till now the Pilgrim's vow
Has held the Pilgrim's sons.
He braved the red man's ambush;
He loosed the black man's chains;
His spirit broke King George's yoke
And the battleships of Spain.
He crossed the seething ocean;
He dared the death-strewn track;
He charged in the hell of Saint Mihiel
And hurled the tyrant back.
For the voice of the lonely Pilgrim
Who knelt upon the strand
A people hears three hundred years
in the conscience of the land.
______________
Daughter of Truth and mother of Courage,
Conscience, all hail!
Heart of New England, strength of the Pilgrim,
Thou shalt prevail.
Look how empires rise and fall!
Athens robed in her learning and beauty,
Rome in her royal lust of power —
Each has flourished her little hour,
Risen and fallen and ceased to be.
What of her by the western sea,
Born and bred as the child of Duty,
Sternest of them all?
She it is, and she alone
Who built on faith as her corner stone;
Of all nations none but she
Knew that the truth shall make us free.
Daughter of Courage, mother of heroes,
Freedom divine,
Light of New England, star of the Pilgrim,
Still shalt thou shine.
______________
Yet even as we in our pride rejoice,
Hark to the prophet's
warning voice:
"The Pilgrim's thrift is vanished,
And the Pilgrim's faith is dead,
And the Pilgrim's God is banished,
And Mammon reigns in his stead;
And work is damned as an evil,
And men and women cry,
In their restless haste, 'Let us spend and waste,
And live, for to-morrow we die.'
"And law is trampled under;
And the nations stand aghast.
As they hear the distant thunder
Of the storm that marches fast;
and we,— whose ocean borders
Shut off the sound and sight,—
We will wait for marching orders;
The world has seen us fight;
We have earned our days of revel;
'On with the dance!' we cry,
'It is pain to think; we will eat and drink,
And live— for to-morrow we die.
"We have laughed in the eyes of danger;
We have given our bravest and our best;
We have succored the starving stranger;
Others shall heed the rest.'
And the revel never ceases;
And the nations hold their breath;
And our laughter peals, and the mad world reels
To a carnival of death.
"Slaves of sloth and the senses,
Clippers of Freedom's wings,
Come back to the Pilgrim army
And fight for the King of Kings;
Come back to the Pilgrim's conscience;
Be born in the nation's birth;
And strive again as simple men
For the freedom of the earth.
"Freedom a free-born nation still shall cherish;
Be this our covenant, unchanging, sure;
Earth shall decay; the firmament shall perish;
Freedom and Truth immortal shall endure."
______________
Land of our fathers, when the tempest rages,
When the wide earth is wracked with war and strife,
Founded forever on the Rock of Ages,
Beaten in vain by surging seas of time,
Even as the shallop on the breakers riding,
Even as the Pilgrim kneeling on the shore,
Firm in thy faith and fortitude abiding,
Hold thou thy children free for ever more.
______________
And when we sail as the Pilgrims' sons and daughters
The spirit's Mayflower into seas unknown,
Driving across the waste of wintry waters
The voyage every soul shall make alone,
The Pilgrim's faith, the Pilgrim's courage grant us;
still shines the truth that for the Pilgrim shone.
We are his seed; nor life nor death shall daunt us.
The port is Freedom! Pilgrim heart, sail on!
