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| BEFORE him rolls the dark, relentless ocean; | |
| Behind him stretch the cold and barren sands; | |
| Wrapt in the mantle of his deep devotion | |
| The Pilgrim kneels, and clasps his lifted hands; | |
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| “God of our fathers, who hast safely brought us | 5 |
| Through seas and sorrows, famine, fire, and sword; | |
| Who, in Thy mercies manifold hast taught us | |
| To trust in Thee, our leader and our Lord; | |
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| “God, who hast send Thy truth to shine before us, | |
| A fiery pillar, beaconing on the sea; | 10 |
| God, who hast spread thy wings of mercy o’er us; | |
| God, who hast set our children’s children free, | |
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| “Freedom Thy new-born nation here shall cherish; | |
| Grant us Thy covenant, changing, sure: | |
| Earth shall decay; the firmament shall perish; | 15 |
| Freedom and Truth, immortal shall endure.” | |
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Face to the Indian arrows. |
| Face to the Prussian guns, | |
| From then till now the Pilgrim’s vow | |
| Has held the Pilgrim’s sons. | 20 |
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| He braved the red man’s ambush, | |
| He loosed the black man’s chain; | |
| His spirit broke King George’s yoke | |
| And the battleships of Spain. | |
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| He crossed the seething ocean; | 25 |
| He dared the death-strewn track; | |
| He charged in the hell of Saint Mihiel | |
| And hurled the tyrant back. | |
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| For the voice of the lonely Pilgrim | |
| Who knelt upon the strand | 30 |
| A people hears three hundred years | |
| In the conscience of the land. | |
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Daughter of Truth and mother of Courage, |
| Conscience, all hail! | |
| Heart of New England, strength of the Pilgrims, | 35 |
| Thou shalt prevail. | |
| Look how the empires rise and fall! | |
| Athens robed in her learning and beauty, | |
| Rome in her royal lust for power— | |
| Each has flourished for her little hour, | 40 |
| Risen and fallen and ceased to be. | |
| What of her by the Western Sea, | |
| Born and bred as the child of Duty, | |
| Sternest of them all? | |
| She it is and she alone | 45 |
| Who built on faith as her corner stone; | |
| Of all the nations none but she | |
| Knew that the truth shall make us free. | |
| Daughter of Courage, mother of heroes, | |
| Freedom divine. | 50 |
| Light of New England, Star of the Pilgrim, | |
| Still shalt thou shine. | |
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Yet even as we in our pride rejoice, |
| Hark to the prophet’s warning voice: | |
| “The Pilgrim’s thrift is vanished | 55 |
| And the Pilgrim’s faith is dead, | |
| And the Pilgrim’s God is banished, | |
| And Mammon reigns in his stead; | |
| And work is damned as an evil, | |
| And men and women cry, | 60 |
| In their restless haste, ‘Let us spend and waste, | |
| And live; for to-morrow we die.’ | |
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| “And law is trampled under; | |
| And the nations stand aghast, | |
| As they hear the distant thunder | 65 |
| Of the storm that marches fast; | |
| And we,—whose ocean borders | |
| Shut off the sound and the sight, | |
| We will wait for marching orders; | |
| The world has seen us fight; | 70 |
| We have earned our days of revel; | |
| ‘On with the dance’! we cry. | |
| It is pain to think; we will eat and drink! | |
| And live; for to-morrow we die.” | |
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| “‘We have laughed in the eyes of danger; | 75 |
| We have given our bravest and best; | |
| We have succored the starving stranger; | |
| Others shall heed the rest.’ | |
| And the revel never ceases; | |
| And the nations hold their breath; | 80 |
| And our laughter peals, and the mad world reels, | |
| To a carnival of death. | |
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| “Slaves of sloth and the senses, | |
| Clippers of Freedom’s wings, | |
| Come back to the Pilgrim’s Army | 85 |
| And fight for the King of Kings; | |
| Come back to the Pilgrim’s conscience; | |
| Be born in the nation’s birth; | |
| And strive again as simple men | |
| For the freedom of the earth. | 90 |
| Freedom a free-born nation still shall cherish, | |
| Be this our covenant, unchanging, sure: | |
| Earth shall decay; the firmament shall perish; | |
| Freedom and Truth immortal shall endure.” | |
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Land of our fathers, when the tempest rages, 95 |
| When the wide earth is racked with war and crime, | |
| Founded forever on the Rock of Ages, | |
| Beaten in vain by surging seas of time, | |
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| Even as the shallop on the breakers riding, | |
| Even as the Pilgrim kneeling on the shore, | 100 |
| Firm in thy faith and fortitude abiding, | |
| Hold thou thy children free forever more. | |
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And when we sail as Pilgrims’ sons and daughters |
| The spirit’s Mayflower into seas unknown, | |
| Driving across the waste of wintry waters | 105 |
| The voyage every soul shall make alone, | |
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| The Pilgrim’s faith, the Pilgrim’s courage grant us; | |
| Still shines the truth that for the Pilgrim shone. | |
| We are his seed; nor life nor death shall daunt us. | |
| The port is Freedom! Pilgrim heart, sail on! | 110 |
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