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| THE PILGRIM fathers—where are they? | |
| The waves that brought them o’er | |
| Still roll in the bay, and throw their spray | |
| As they break along the shore: | |
| Still roll in the bay, as they roll’d that day, | 5 |
| When the May-Flower moor’d below, | |
| When the sea around was black with storms, | |
| And white the shore with snow. | |
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| The mists, that wrapp’d the pilgrim’s sleep, | |
| Still brood upon the tide; | 10 |
| And his rocks yet keep their watch by the deep, | |
| To stay its waves of pride. | |
| But the snow-white sail, that he gave to the gale, | |
| When the heavens look’d dark, is gone;— | |
| As an angel’s wing, through an opening cloud, | 15 |
| Is seen, and then withdrawn. | |
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| The pilgrim exile—sainted name!— | |
| The hill, whose icy brow | |
| Rejoiced, when he came, in the morning’s flame, | |
| In the morning’s flame burns now. | 20 |
| And the moon’s cold light, as it lay that night | |
| On the hill-side and the sea, | |
| Still lies where he laid his houseless head;— | |
| But the pilgrim—where is he? | |
| |
| The pilgrim fathers are at rest: | 25 |
| When Summer ’s throned on high, | |
| And the world’s warm breast is in verdure dress’d, | |
| Go, stand on the hill where they lie. | |
| The earliest ray of the golden day | |
| On that hallowed spot is cast; | 30 |
| And the evening sun, as he leaves the world, | |
| Looks kindly on that spot last. | |
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| The pilgrim spirit has not fled: | |
| It walks in noon’s broad light; | |
| And it watches the bed of the glorious dead, | 35 |
| With the holy stars, by night. | |
| It watches the bed of the brave who have bled, | |
| And shall guard this ice-bound shore, | |
| Till the waves of the bay, where the May-Flower lay, | |
| Shall foam and freeze no more. | 40 |
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