<h2><SPAN name="chap14"></SPAN>1620-1920</h2>
<p class="poem">
Before him rolls the dark, relentless ocean;<br/>
Behind him stretch the cold and barren sands;<br/>
Wrapt in the mantle of his deep devotion<br/>
The Pilgrim kneels, and clasps his lifted hands;<br/>
<br/>
“God of our fathers, who hast safely brought us<br/>
Through seas and sorrows, famine, fire, and sword;<br/>
Who, in Thy mercies manifold hast taught us<br/>
To trust in Thee, our leader and our Lord;<br/>
<br/>
“God, who hast send Thy truth to shine before us,<br/>
A fiery pillar, beaconing on the sea;<br/>
God, who hast spread thy wings of mercy o’er us;<br/>
God, who hast set our children’s children free,<br/>
<br/>
“Freedom Thy new-born nation here shall cherish;<br/>
Grant us Thy covenant, changing, sure:<br/>
Earth shall decay; the firmament shall perish;<br/>
Freedom and Truth, immortal shall endure.”<br/></p>
<hr />
<p class="poem">
Face to the Indian arrows.<br/>
Face to the Prussian guns,<br/>
From then till now the Pilgrim’s vow<br/>
Has held the Pilgrim’s sons.<br/>
<br/>
He braved the red man’s ambush,<br/>
He loosed the black man’s chain;<br/>
His spirit broke King George’s yoke<br/>
And the battleships of Spain.<br/>
<br/>
He crossed the seething ocean;<br/>
He dared the death-strewn track;<br/>
He charged in the hell of Saint Mihiel<br/>
And hurled the tyrant back.<br/>
<br/>
For the voice of the lonely Pilgrim<br/>
Who knelt upon the strand<br/>
A people hears three hundred years<br/>
In the conscience of the land.<br/></p>
<hr />
<p class="poem">
Daughter of Truth and mother of Courage,<br/>
Conscience, all hail!<br/>
Heart of New England, strength of the Pilgrims,<br/>
Thou shalt prevail.<br/>
Look how the empires rise and fall!<br/>
Athens robed in her learning and beauty,<br/>
Rome in her royal lust for power—<br/>
Each has flourished for her little hour,<br/>
Risen and fallen and ceased to be.<br/>
What of her by the Western Sea,<br/>
Born and bred as the child of Duty,<br/>
Sternest of them all?<br/>
She it is and she alone<br/>
Who built on faith as her corner stone;<br/>
Of all the nations none but she<br/>
Knew that the truth shall make us free.<br/>
Daughter of Courage, mother of heros,<br/>
Freedom divine.<br/>
Light of New England, Star of the Pilgrim,<br/>
Still shalt thou shine.</p>
<hr />
<p class="poem">
Yet even as we in our pride rejoice,<br/>
Hark to the prophet’s warning voice:<br/>
“The Pilgrim’s thrift is vanished<br/>
And the Pilgrim’s faith is dead,<br/>
And the Pilgrim’s God is banished,<br/>
And Mammon reigns in his stead;<br/>
And work is damned as an evil,<br/>
And men and women cry,<br/>
In their restless haste, ‘Let us spend and waste,<br/>
And live; for to-morrow we die.’<br/>
<br/>
“And law is trampled under;<br/>
And the nations stand aghast,<br/>
As they hear the distant thunder<br/>
Of the storm that marches fast;<br/>
And we,—whose ocean borders<br/>
Shut off the sound and the sight,<br/>
We will wait for marching orders;<br/>
The world has seen us fight;<br/>
We have earned our days of revel;<br/>
‘On with the dance’! we cry.<br/>
It is pain to think; we will eat and drink!<br/>
And live; for to-morrow we die.”<br/>
<br/>
“We have laughed in the eyes of danger;<br/>
We have given our bravest and best;<br/>
We have succored the starving stranger;<br/>
Others shall heed the rest.’<br/>
And the revel never ceases;<br/>
And the nations hold their breath;<br/>
And our laughter peals, and the mad world reels,<br/>
To a carnival of death.<br/>
<br/>
“Slaves of sloth and the senses,<br/>
Clippers of Freedom’s wings,<br/>
Come back to the Pilgrim’s Army<br/>
And fight for the King of Kings;<br/>
Come back to the Pilgrim’s conscience;<br/>
Be born in the nation’s birth;<br/>
And strive again as simple men<br/>
For the freedom of the earth.<br/>
Freedom a free-born nation still shall cherish,<br/>
Be this our covenant, unchanging, sure:<br/>
Earth shall decay; the firmament shall perish;<br/>
Freedom and Truth immortal shall endure.”<br/></p>
<hr/>
<p class="poem">
Land of our fathers, when the tempest rages,<br/>
When the wide earth is racked with war and crime,<br/>
Founded forever on the Rock of Ages,<br/>
Beaten in vain by surging seas of time,<br/>
<br/>
Even as the shallop on the breakers riding,<br/>
Even as the Pilgrim kneeling on the shore,<br/>
Firm in thy faith and fortitude abiding,<br/>
Hold thou thy children free forever more.<br/></p>
<hr/>
<p class="poem">
And when we sail as Pilgrims’ sons and daughters<br/>
The spirit’s Mayflower into seas unknown,<br/>
Driving across the waste of wintry waters<br/>
The voyage every soul shall make alone,<br/>
<br/>
The Pilgrim’s faith, the Pilgrim’s courage grant us;<br/>
Still shines the truth that for the Pilgrim shone.<br/>
We are his seed; nor life nor death shall daunt us.<br/>
The port is Freedom! Pilgrim heart, sail on!<br/></p>
<p class="left">
LE BARON RUSSELL BRIGGS</p>
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