Classic Poem

M AYFLOWER! Mayflower! Where didst thou vanish?
Borne on what gale didst thou breast the wild seas?
Wert thou destroyed by the guns of the Spanish?
Or wert thou wrecked on the bleak Hebrides?
Or, having finished thy voyages allotted,
Rest didst thou find in a kelp-tangled grave,
Gnawed by teredos, old, broken and rotted,
Dropping away in the tide's glaucous wave?

Wert thou engulft in the shoals of Cape Sable,
Covered from sight and preserved in the sand?
Dost thou emerge, like the ship of the fable,
Ghostlike, at midnight, approaching the land,
Bearing the spirits of emigrants perished,
Fain to behold the shores that they sought —
Splendid fruition of hopes that they cherished,
Marvellous miracle mightily wrought?

When the ship Argo had ended her mission,
Bringing the apples of gold from afar,
Zeus the high Thunderer (says the tradition)
Set her in Heaven — each cross-tree a star.
So should the Mayflower , sacred in story,
Live in the sight of our children though late;
She should be pictured — our History's glory —
Garved on the legend-bright seal of the State.

Mayflower! Mayflower! awkward and cumbrous,
Still thou 'rt the symbol of freedom and truth!
When too great luxury makes our eyes slumbrous,
When high ideals are hid from our youth,
Bring to our hearts to wake us and chide us
What our sires bore for the sake of the right.
Be thou our aegis to guard us and guide us,
Flame evermore like a beacon of night!