An Ode

READ  AUGUST  15, 1907,  AT THE  DEDI-
CATION  OF  THE MONUMENT  ERECTED
AT  GLOUCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS,  IN
COMMEMORATION  OF  THE  FOUNDING
OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY
IN  THE  YEAR  SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND
TWENTY-THREE  BY  MADISON CAWEIN

 

JOHN P. MORTON & COMPANY, INCORPORATED.
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY MCMVIII

 

 

[Pg 1]

Decorative Border

An Ode

In Commemoration of the Founding of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony in the Year 1623.

 

I.

They who maintained their rights,
Through storm and stress,
And walked in all the ways
That God made known,
Led by no wandering lights,
And by no guess,
Through dark and desolate days
Of trial and moan:
Here let their monument
Rise, like a word
In rock commemorative
[Pg 2]Of our Land's youth;
Of ways the Puritan went,
With soul love-spurred
To suffer, die, and live
For faith and truth.
Here they the corner-stone
Of Freedom laid;
Here in their hearts' distress
They lit the lights
Of Liberty alone;
Here, with God's aid,
Conquered the wilderness,
Secured their rights.
Not men, but giants, they,
Who wrought with toil
And sweat of brawn and brain
Their freehold here;
Who, with their blood, each day
Hallowed the soil.
And left it without stain
And without fear.

 

[Pg 3]

II.

Yea; here, from men like these,
Our country had its stanch beginning;
Hence sprang she with the ocean breeze
And pine scent in her hair;
Deep in her eyes the winning,
The far-off winning of the unmeasured West;
And in her heart the care,
The young unrest,
Of all that she must dare,
Ere as a mighty Nation she should stand
Towering from sea to sea,
From land to mountained land,
One with the imperishable beauty of the stars
In absolute destiny;
Part of that cosmic law, no shadow mars,
To which all freedom runs,
That wheels the circles of the worlds and suns
Along their courses through the vasty night,
Irrevocable and eternal as is Light.

 

[Pg 4]

III.

What people has to-day
Such faith as launched and sped,
With psalm and prayer, the Mayflower on its way?—
Such faith as led
The Dorchester fishers to this sea-washed point,
This granite headland of Cape Ann?
Where first they made their bed,
Salt-blown and wet with brine,
In cold and hunger, where the storm-wrenched pine
Clung to the rock with despe

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