An Ode Pronounced Before the Inhabitants of Boston, September the Seventeenth, 1830 | Page 2

to adore--
But no
glad vision burst in light,
Upon the Pilgrims' aching sight;
Their
hearts no proud hereafter swelled;
Deep shadows veiled the way they
held;
The yell of vengeance was their trump of fame,
Their
monument, a grave without a name.
VII.
Yet, strong in weakness, there they stand,
On yonder ice-bound rock,

Stern and resolved, that faithful band,
To meet fate's rudest shock.

Though anguish rends the father's breast,
For them, his dearest and
his best,
With him the waste who trod--
Though tears that freeze,
the mother sheds
Upon her children's houseless heads--
The
Christian turns to God!
VIII.
In grateful adoration now,
Upon the barren sands they bow.
What
tongue of joy e'er woke such prayer,
As bursts in desolation there?

What arm of strength e'er wrought such power,
As waits to crown
that feeble hour?
There into life an infant empire springs!
There falls the iron from the soul;
There liberty's young accents roll,

Up to the King of kings!
To fair creation's farthest bound,
That
thrilling summons yet shall sound;
The dreaming nations shall awake,

And to their centre earth's old kingdoms shake.
Pontiff and prince, your sway
Must crumble from that day;
Before
the loftier throne of Heaven,
The hand is raised, the pledge is given--

One monarch to obey, one creed to own,
That monarch, God, that
creed, His word alone.

IX.
Spread out earth's holiest records here,
Of days and deeds to
reverence dear;
A zeal like this what pious legends tell?
On kingdoms built
In blood and guilt,
The worshippers of vulgar
triumph dwell--
But what exploit with theirs shall page,
Who rose to bless their kind;

Who left their nation and their age,
Man's spirit to unbind?
Who
boundless seas passed o'er,
And boldly met, in every path,
Famine
and frost and heathen wrath,
To dedicate a shore,
Where piety's
meek train might breathe their vow,
And seek their Maker with an
unshamed brow;
Where liberty's glad race might proudly come,

And set up there an everlasting home?
X.
O many a time it hath been told,
The story of those men of old:
For
this fair poetry hath wreathed
Her sweetest, purest flower;
For this
proud eloquence hath breathed
His strain of loftiest power;

Devotion, too, hath lingered round
Each spot of consecrated ground,

And hill and valley blessed;
There, where our banished Fathers
strayed,
There, where they loved and wept and prayed,
There,
where their ashes rest.
XI.
And never may they rest unsung,
While liberty can find a tongue.

Twine, Gratitude, a wreath for them,
More deathless than the diadem,

Who to life's noblest end,
Gave up life's noblest powers,
And
bade the legacy descend,
Down, down to us and ours.
XII.
By centuries now the glorious hour we mark,
When to these shores

they steered their shattered bark;
And still, as other centuries melt
away,
Shall other ages come to keep the day.
When we are dust,
who gather round this spot,
Our joys, our griefs, our very names
forgot,
Here shall the dwellers of the land be seen,
To keep the
memory of the Pilgrims green.
Nor here alone their praises shall go
round,
Nor here alone their virtues shall abound--
Broad as the
empire of the free shall spread,
Far as the foot of man shall dare to
tread,
Where oar hath never dipped, where human tongue
Hath
never through the woods of ages rung,
There, where the eagle's
scream and wild wolf's cry
Keep ceaseless day and night through
earth and sky,
Even there, in after time, as toil and taste
Go forth in
gladness to redeem the waste,
Even there shall rise, as grateful
myriads throng,
Faith's holy prayer and freedom's joyful song;

There shall the flame that flashed from yonder ROCK,
Light up the
land, till nature's final shock.
XIII.
Yet while by life's endearments crowned,
To mark this day we gather
round,
And to our nation's founders raise
The voice of gratitude and
praise,
Shall not one line lament that lion race,
For us struck out
from sweet creation's face?
Alas! alas! for them--those fated bands,

Whose monarch tread was on these broad, green lands;
Our Fathers
called them savage--them, whose bread,
In the dark hour, those
famished Fathers fed:
We call them savage, we,
Who hail the struggling free,
Of every
clime and hue;
We, who would save
The branded slave,
And give
him liberty he never knew:
We, who but now have caught the tale,
That turns each listening
tyrant pale,
And blessed the winds and waves that bore
The tidings
to our kindred shore;
The triumph-tidings pealing from that land,

Where up in arms insulted legions stand;

There, gathering round his bold compeers,
Where He, our own, our
welcomed One,
Riper in glory than in years,
Down from his forfeit
throne,
A craven monarch hurled,
And spurned him forth, a proverb
to the world!
XIV.
We call them savage--O be just!
Their outraged feelings scan;
A
voice comes forth, 'tis from the dust--
The savage was a man!
Think
ye he loved not? who stood by,
And in his toils took part?
Woman
was there to bless his eye--
The savage had a heart!
Think ye he
prayed not? when on high
He heard the thunders roll,
What bade
him look beyond the sky?
The savage had a soul!
XV.
I venerate the Pilgrim's cause,
Yet for the red man dare to plead--

We bow to Heaven's recorded laws,
He turned to nature for a creed;

Beneath the pillared dome,
We seek our God