| |
| HE sleeps not here; in hope and prayer | |
| His wandering flock had gone before, | |
| But he, the shepherd, might not share | |
| Their sorrows on the wintry shore. | |
| |
| Before the Speedwell’s anchor swung, | 5 |
| Ere yet the Mayflower’s sail was spread, | |
| While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, | |
| The pastor spake, and thus he said:— | |
| |
| “Men, brethren, sisters, children dear! | |
| God calls you hence from over sea; | 10 |
| Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer, | |
| Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee. | |
| |
| “Ye go to bear the saving word | |
| To tribes unnamed and shores untrod: | |
| Heed well the lessons ye have heard | 15 |
| From those old teachers taught of God. | |
| |
| “Yet think not unto them was lent | |
| All light for all the coming days, | |
| And Heaven’s eternal wisdom spent | |
| In making straight the ancient ways: | 20 |
| |
| “The living fountain overflows | |
| For every flock, for every lamb, | |
| Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose, | |
| With Luther’s dike or Calvin’s dam.” | |
| |
| He spake: with lingering, long embrace, | 25 |
| With tears of love and partings fond, | |
| They floated down the creeping Maas, | |
| Along the isle of Ysselmond. | |
| |
| They passed the frowning towers of Briel, | |
| The “Hook of Holland’s” shelf of sand, | 30 |
| And grated soon with lifting keel | |
| The sullen shores of fatherland. | |
| |
| No home for these! too well they knew | |
| The mitred king behind the throne; | |
| The sails were set, the pennons flew, | 35 |
| And westward ho! for worlds unknown. | |
| |
| And these were they who gave us birth, | |
| The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, | |
| Who won for us this virgin earth, | |
| And freedom with the soil they gave. | 40 |
| |
| The pastor slumbers by the Rhine,— | |
| In alien earth the exiles lie,— | |
| Their nameless graves our holiest shrine, | |
| His words our noblest battle-cry! | |
| |
| Still cry them, and the world shall hear, | 45 |
| Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea! | |
| Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer, | |
| Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee! | |
| |
