For the baby's limbs were feeble, Though his father's arms were stout. His home was a freezing cabin, Its roof was thatched with ragged grass, The hole that served for casement Along the dreary landscape The streams that did not flow; He smote his leathern jerkin, "Come hither, God-be-Glorified, By the winter's hearth in Leyden "I saw in the naked forest Our scattered remnant cast, The dying fell as fast; "Again mine eyes were opened, The feeble had waxed strong, The babes had grown to sturdy men, By shadowed lake and winding stream, The howling demons quaked to hear "They slept, - the village fathers, By river, lake, and shore, When far adown the steep of Time The vision rose once more; I saw along the winter snow "Their Leader rode before them, These were a Nation's champions God for the right! I faltered, "Once more, the strife is ended, The solemn issue tried, The Lord of Hosts, his mighty arm Has helped our Israel's side; Gray stone and grassy hillock A crash, as when some swollen cloud But what is she, whose streaming bars "Ah, well her iron ribs are knit, The bellowing throats, the blazing lips, And, wavering from its haughty peak, "O trembling Faith! though dark the morn, A heavenly torch is thine; While feebler races melt away, And paler orbs decline, Still shall the fiery pillar's ray Along thy pathway shine, To light the chosen tribe that sought "I see the living tide roll on; It crowns with flaming towers The icy capes of Labrador, The Spaniard's 'land of flowers'! It streams beyond the splintered ridge That parts the northern showers; From eastern rock to sunset wave The continent is ours!" He ceased, the grim old soldier-saint, Then softly bent to cheer The pilgrim-child, whose wasting face And drew his toil-worn sleeve across, To brush the manly tear From cheeks that never changed in wo And never blanched in fear. The weary pilgrim slumbers, His resting-place unknown; His hands were crossed, his lids were closed, The dust was o'er him strown; The drifting soil, the mouldering leaf, Along the sod were blown; His mound has melted into earth, His memory lives alone. So let it live unfading, The memory of the dead, Long as the pale anemone Springs where their tears were shed, Or, raining in the summer's wind In flakes of burning red, The wild rose sprinkles with its leaves Yea, when the frowning bulwarks Have sunk beneath the trampling surge In beds of sparkling sand, One hoary rock shall stand, Here was the Pilgrim's land! OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. PAUL REVERE'S RIDE. LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear Who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friend, "If the British march Of the North Church tower as a signal light, - Through every Middlesex village and farm, Then he said, "Good-night!" and with muffled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where swinging wide at her moorings lay The Somerset, British man-of-war; A phantom ship, with each mast and spar |