An Ode. Cawein Madison Julius

n Julius

      An Ode Read August 15, 1907, at the dedication of the monument erected at Gloucester, Massachusetts, in commemoration of the founding of the Massachusetts Bay colony in the year sixteen hundred and twenty-three

      An Ode

READ AUGUST 15, 1907, AT THE DEDICATION OF THE MONUMENT ERECTED AT GLOUCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, IN COMMEMORATION OF THE FOUNDING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY IN THE YEAR SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE BY MADISON CAWEIN JOHN P. MORTON & COMPANY, INCORPORATED

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY MCMVIII

      An Ode

In Commemoration of the Founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the Year 1623

I

      They who maintained their rights,

      Through storm and stress,

      And walked in all the ways

      That God made known,

      Led by no wandering lights,

      And by no guess,

      Through dark and desolate days

      Of trial and moan:

      Here let their monument

      Rise, like a word

      In rock commemorative

      Of our Land's youth;

      Of ways the Puritan went,

      With soul love-spurred

      To suffer, die, and live

      For faith and truth.

      Here they the corner-stone

      Of Freedom laid;

      Here in their hearts' distress

      They lit the lights

      Of Liberty alone;

      Here, with God's aid,

      Conquered the wilderness,

      Secured their rights.

      Not men, but giants, they,

      Who wrought with toil

      And sweat of brawn and brain

      Their freehold here;

      Who, with their blood, each day

      Hallowed the soil.

      And left it without stain

      And without fear.

II

      Yea; here, from men like these,

      Our country had its stanch beginning;

      Hence sprang she with the ocean breeze

      And pine scent in her hair;

      Deep in her eyes the winning,

      The far-off winning of the unmeasured West;

      And in her heart the care,

      The young unrest,

      Of all that she must dare,

      Ere as a mighty Nation she should stand

      Towering from sea to sea,

      From land to mountained land,

      One with the imperishable beauty of the stars

      In absolute destiny;

      Part of that cosmic law, no shadow mars,

      To which all freedom runs,

      That wheels the circles of the worlds and suns

      Along their courses through the vasty night,

      Irrevocable and eternal as is Light.

III

      What people has to-day

      Such faith as launched and sped,

      With psalm and prayer, the Mayflower on its way? —

      Such faith as led

      The Dorchester fishers to this sea-washed point,

      This granite headland of Cape Ann?

      Where first they made their bed,

      Salt-blown and wet with brine,

      In cold and hunger, where the storm-wrenched pine

      Clung to the rock with desperate footing. They,

      With hearts courageous whom hope did anoint,

      Despite their tar and tan,

      Worn of the wind and spray,

      Seem more to me than man,

      With their unconquerable spirits. – Mountains may

      Succumb to men like these, to wills like theirs, —

      The Puritan's tenacity to do;

      The stubbornness of genius; – holding to

      Their purpose to the end,

      No New-World hardship could deflect or bend; —

      That never doubted in their worst despairs,

      But steadily on their way

      Held to the last, trusting in God, who filled

      Their souls with fire of faith that helped them build

      A country, greater than had ever thrilled

      Man's wildest dreams, or entered in

      His highest hopes. 'Twas this that helped them win

      In spite of danger and distress,

      Through darkness and the din

      Of winds and waves, unto a wilderness,

      Savage, unbounded, pathless as the sea,

      That said, "Behold me! I am free!"

      Giving itself to them for greater things

      Than filled their souls with dim imaginings.

IV

      Let History record their stalwart names,

      And catalogue their fortitude, whence grew,

      Swiftly as running flames,

      Cities and civilization:

      How from a meeting-house and school,

      A few log-huddled cabins, Freedom drew

      Her rude beginnings. Every pioneer station,

      Each settlement, though primitive of tool,

      Had in it then the making of a Nation;

      Had in it then the roofing of the plains

      With traffic; and the piercing through and through

      Of forests with the iron veins

      Of industry.

      Would I could make you see