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MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS.

THE breaking waves dash'd high

On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tost;

And the heavy night hung dark

The hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moor'd their bark

On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,

They, the true-hearted came,

Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame;

26 LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS.

Not as the flying come,

In silence and in fear,

They shook the depths of the desert's gloom,

With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard and the sea!

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang

To the anthem of the free!

The ocean-eagle soar'd

From his nest by the white wave's foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roar'd-

This was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair,
Amidst that pilgrim-band-

Why had they come to wither there
Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,

Lit by her deep love's truth;
There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.

LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 27

What sought they thus afar?

Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?

-They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod!

They have left unstain'd what there they found-
Freedom to worship God!

[These glorious verses will find an echo in the breast of every true descendant of the Pilgrims; and give the name of their authoress a place in many hearts. She has laid our community under a common obligation of gratitude. Every one must feel the sublimity and poetical truth, with which she has conceived the scene presented, and the inspiration of that deep and holy strain of sentiment, which sounds forth like the pealing of an organ. ED.]

THE HEBREW MOTHER.

THE rose was in rich bloom on Sharon's plain,
When a young mother with her first-born thence
Went up to Zion, for the boy was vow'd
Unto the Temple-service ;—by the hand
She led him, and her silent soul, the while,
Oft as the dewy laughter of his eye
Met her sweet serious glance, rejoic'd to think
That aught so pure, so beautiful, was hers,
To bring before her God. So pass'd they on,
O'er Judah's hills; and wheresoe'er the leaves
Of the broad sycamore made sounds at noon,
Like lulling rain-drops, or the olive-boughs,
With their cool dimness, cross'd the sultry blue
Of Syria's heaven, she paus'd, that he might rest;
Yet from her own meek eyelids chas'd the sleep
That weigh'd their dark fringe down, to sit and watch
The crimson deepening o'er his cheek's repose,
As at a red flower's heart.-And where a fount
Lay like a twilight-star 'midst palmy shades,

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