An Ode Pronounced Before the Inhabitants of Boston, September the Seventeenth, 1830 | Page 4

repair,

The tardy pile, slow rising there,
With tongueless eloquence shall tell

Of them who for their country fell.
XXIV.
All gone! 'tis ours, the goodly land--
Look round--the heritage behold;

Go forth--upon the mountains stand,
Then, if ye can, be cold.
See
living vales by living waters blessed,
Their wealth see earth's dark caverns yield,
See ocean roll, in glory
dressed,
For all a treasure, and round all a shield:
Hark to the shouts of praise
Rejoicing millions raise;
Gaze on the
spires that rise,
To point them to the skies,
Unfearing and unfeared;

Then, if ye can, O then forget
To whom ye owe the sacred debt--

The Pilgrim race revered!
The men who set faith's burning lights

Upon these everlasting heights,
To guide their children through the
years of time;
The men that glorious law who taught,
Unshrinking liberty of thought,

And roused the nations with the truth sublime.
XXV.
Forget? no, never--ne'er shall die,
Those names to memory dear;
I
read the promise in each eye
That beams upon me here.

Descendants of a twice-recorded race,
Long may ye here your lofty
lineage grace;
'Tis not for you home's tender tie
To rend, and brave the waste of
waves;
'Tis not for you to rouse and die,
Or yield and live a line of
slaves;
The deeds of danger and of death are done:
Upheld by inward power alone,
Unhonoured by the world's loud
tongue,
'Tis yours to do unknown,
And then to die unsung.
To

other days, to other men belong
The penman's plaudit and the poet's
song;
Enough for glory has been wrought,
By you be humbler praises
sought;
In peace and truth life's journey run,
And keep unsullied
what your Fathers won.
XXVI.
Take then my prayer, Ye dwellers of this spot--
Be yours a noiseless
and a guiltless lot.
I plead not that ye bask
In the rank beams of vulgar fame;
To light
your steps I ask
A purer and a holier flame.
No bloated growth I
supplicate for you,
No pining multitude, no pampered few;
'Tis not alone to coffer gold,
Nor spreading borders to behold;
'Tis
not fast-swelling crowds to win,
The refuse-ranks of want and sin--

This be the kind decree:
Be ye by goodness crowned,
Revered,
though not renowned;
Poor, if Heaven will, but Free!
Free from the
tyrants of the hour,
The clans of wealth, the clans of power,
The
coarse, cold scorners of their God;
Free from the taint of sin,
The
leprosy that feeds within,
And free, in mercy, from the bigot's rod.
XXVII.
The sceptre's might, the crosier's pride,
Ye do not fear;
No conquest blade, in life-blood dyed,
Drops terror here--
Let there not lurk a subtler snare,
For wisdom's
footsteps to beware;
The shackle and the stake,
Our Fathers fled;

Ne'er may their children wake
A fouler wrath, a deeper dread;
Ne'er
may the craft that fears the flesh to bind,
Lock its hard fetters on the mind;
Quenched be the fiercer flame


That kindles with a name;
The pilgrim's faith, the pilgrim's zeal,
Let
more than pilgrim kindness seal;
Be purity of life the test,
Leave to
the heart, to Heaven, the rest.
XXVIII.
So, when our children turn the page,
To ask what triumphs marked
our age,
What we achieved to challenge praise,
Through the long
line of future days,
This let them read, and hence instruction draw:
"Here were the Many blessed,
Here found the virtues rest,
Faith
linked with love and liberty with law;
Here industry to comfort led,
Her book of light here learning spread;

Here the warm heart of youth
Was wooed to temperance and to
truth;
Here hoary age was found,
By wisdom and by reverence
crowned.
No great, but guilty fame
Here kindled pride, that should
have kindled shame;
THESE chose the better, happier part,
That poured its sunlight o'er
the heart;
That crowned their homes with peace and health,
And
weighed Heaven's smile beyond earth's wealth;
Far from the thorny
paths of life
They stood, a living lesson to their race,
Rich in the charities of life,
Man in his strength, and Woman in her
grace;
In purity and love THEIR pilgrim road they trod,
And when
they served their neighbor felt they served their God."
XXIX.
This may not wake the poet's verse,
This souls of fire may ne'er
rehearse
In crowd-delighting voice;
Yet o'er the record shall the patriot bend,

His quiet praise the moralist shall lend,

And all the good rejoice.
XXX.
This be our story then, in that far day,
When others come their
kindred debt to pay:
In that far day?--O what shall be,
In this dominion of the free,

When we and ours have rendered up our trust,
And men unborn shall
tread above our dust?
O what shall be?--He, He alone,
The dread response can make,

Who sitteth on the only throne,
That time shall never shake;
Before
whose all-beholding eyes
Ages sweep on, and empires sink and rise.
Then let the song to Him begun,
To Him in reverence end:
Look
down in love, Eternal One,
And Thy good cause defend;
Here, late
and long, put forth Thy hand,
To guard and guide the Pilgrim's land.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Ode Pronounced Before the
Inhabitants of Boston, September the Seventeenth, 1830, at the
Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of the City, by Charles
Sprague
0. END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK