Poems from the Inner Life. Doten Lizzie

Ay! rejoice that ye may leave them an altar unto God,

       On the holy soil of Freedom, where no tyrant’s foot hath trod.

       All honor to our sovereign, his majesty King James,

       But the King of kings above us the highest homage claims.”

       Upon the deck together they knelt them down and prayed,

       The husband and the father, the matron and the maid;

       The broad blue heavens above them, bright with the summer’s glow,

       And the wide, wide waste of waters, with its treacherous waves below;

       Around, the loved and cherished, whom they should see no more,

       And the dark, uncertain future stretching dimly on before.

       O, well might Edward Winslow look sadly on his bride!

       O, well might fair Rose Standish press to her chieftain’s side!

       For with crucified affections they bowed the knee in prayer,

       And besought that God would aid them to suffer and to bear;

       To bear the cross of sorrow—a broader shield of love

       Than the Royal Cross of England, that proudly waved above.

       The balmy winds of summer swept o’er the glittering seas;

       It brought the sign of parting—the white sails met the breeze;

       One farewell gush of sorrow, one prayerful blessing more,

       And the bark that bore the exiles glided slowly from the shore.

       “Thus they left that goodly city,” o’er stormy seas to roam;

       “But they knew that they were pilgrims,” and this world was not their home.

      There is a God in heaven, whose purpose none may tell;

       There is a God in heaven, who doeth all things well:

       And thus an infant nation was cradled on the deep,

       While hosts of holy angels were set to guard its sleep;

       No seer, no priest, or prophet, read its horoscope at birth,

       No bard in solemn saga sung its destiny to earth,

       But slowly—slowly—slowly as the acorn from the sod,

       It grew in strength and grandeur, and spread its arms abroad;

       The eyes of distant nations turned towards that goodly tree,

       And they saw how fair and pleasant were the fruits of Liberty!

       Like earth’s convulsive motion before the earthquake’s shock,

       Like the foaming of the ocean around old Plymouth Rock,

       So the deathless love of Freedom—the majesty of Right—

       In all kindred, and all nations, is rising in its might;

       And words of solemn warning come from the honored dead—

       “Woe, woe to the oppressor if righteous blood be shed!

       Rush not blindly on the future! heed the lessons of the past!

       For the feeble and the faithful are the conquerors at last.”

KEPLER’S VISION.

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      “How grand the spectacle of a mind thus restless—thirsting with unquenchable appetite after beauty and harmony! Never was there a finer example of a spirit too vast to be satiated with the few truths around it, or one that more emphatically foreboded a necessary immortality.”—Prof. R. P. Nichol.