THE MAYFLOWERS. 277 Touched by some strain of thine, perchance may take The hand he proffers all, and thank him for thy sake THE MAYFLOWERS. The trailing arbutus, or mayflower, grows abundantly in the vicinity of Plymouth, and was the first flower that greeted the Pilgrims after their fearful winter. SAD Mayflower! watched by winter stars, And leaves of frozen sails! What had she in those dreary hours, In common with the wild-wood flowers, Yet, "God be praised!" the Pilgrim said, "God wills it: here our rest shall be, For us the Mayflower of the Sea, Oh! sacred flowers of faith and hope Ye bloom on many a birchen slope, Behind the sea-wall's rugged length, Like love behind the manly strength So live the fathers in their sons, The Pilgrim's wild and wintry day But warmer suns ere long shall bring And, through dead leaves of hope, shall spring BURIAL OF BARBOUR. BEAR him, comrades, to his grave; Shall the prairie grasses weep, In the ages yet to come, Bear him up the icy hill, And the land he came to till And his poor hut roofed with snow! One more look of that dead face, BURIAL OF BARBOUR. One more kiss, oh, widowed one! Lay your left hands on his brow, Lift your right hands up, and vow That his work shall yet be done. Patience, friends! The eye of God Watches, lidless, day and night; And our hearts, are in his sight. Every deadly threat that swells Though but whispered, He can hear! We in suffering, they in crime, Wait the vengeance that is due; While the flag with stars bedecked 279 And the Law shakes hands with Crime, What is left us but to wait, Match our patience to our fate, And abide the better time? Patience, friends! The human heart Well to suffer is divine; Pass the watchword down the line, Is the victor's garland sure. Frozen earth to frozen breast, That the State whose walls we lay, Shall be free from bonds of shame, Plant the Buckeye on his grave, In its shadow cannot rest; TO PENNSYLVANIA On State prayer-founded! never hung THE PASS OF THE SIERRA. Across thy Alleghanian chain, And unto thee in Freedom's hour To wound or heal, to blight or bless A free home or a grave! Then let thy virtue match the crime, Wake sleeper, from thy dream of ease, And golden leaves of Autumn, be And thy triumphal song. 10th mo. 1856. THE PASS OF THE SIERRA ALL night above their rocky bed The wild Sierra overhead, The desert's death below. 281 |