THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
48. Behold! they come—those sainted forms,
Unshaken through the strife of storms;
Heaven's winter cloud hangs coldly down,
And earth puts on its rudest frown;
But colder, ruder, was the hand
That drove them from their own fair land;
Their own fair land—Refinement's chosen seat,
Art's trophied dwelling, Learning's green retreat;
By Valor guarded and by Victory crowned,
For all but gentle Charity renowned.
49. With streaming eye, yet steadfast heart,
Even from that land they dared to part,
And burst each tender tie;
Haunts, where their sunny youth was passed,
Homes, where they fondly hoped at last
In peaceful age to die.
Friends, kindred, comfort, all they spurned,
Their fathers' hallowed graves,
And to a world of darkness turned,
Beyond a world of waves.
50. When Israel's race from bondage fled,
Signs from on high the wanderers led;
But here—Heaven hung no symbol here,
Their steps to guide, their souls to cheer;
They saw, through sorrow's lengthening night,
Naught but the fagot's guilty light;
The cloud they gazed at was the smoke.
Nor power above, nor power below,
Sustained them in their hour of woe;
A fearful path they trod,
And dared a fearful doom;
To build an altar to their God,
And find a quiet tomb.
51. Yet, strong in weakness, there they stand
On yonder ice—bound rock,
Stern and resolved, that faithful band,
To meet Fate's rudest shock.
Though anguish rends the father's breast,
For them, his dearest and his best,
With him the waste who trod—
Though tears that freeze the mother sheds
Upon her children's houseless heads—
The Christian turns to God.
52. In grateful adoration now
Upon the barren sands they bow.
What tongue of joy e'er woke such prayer
As bursts in desolation there?
What arm of strength e'er wrought such power
As waits to crown that feeble hour?
When into life an infant empire springs,
There falls the iron from the soul,
There Liberty's young accents roll
Up to the King of kings!
53. Spread out earth's holiest record here,
Of days and deeds to reverence dear;
A zeal like this, what pious legends tell?
On kingdoms built
In blood and guilt,
The worshipers of vulgar triumph dwell:
But what exploit with them shall page
Who rose to bless their kind—
Who left their nation and their age
Man's spirit to unbind
Who boundless seas passed o'er,
And boldly met in every path,
Famine, and frost, and heathen wrath,
To dedicate a shore
Where Piety's meek train might breathe their vow,
And seek their Maker with an unshamed brow;
Where Liberty's glad race might come,
And set up there an everlasting home!
Charles Sprague.
CHAPTER IX.
PLASSEY; AND HOW AN EMPIRE WAS WON.
1. India, the great peninsula stretching from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, is nearly half as large as Europe, and contains a population of 150,000,000. Myth and tradition claim for this people a very great antiquity, and there are many evidences that in arts, government, and literature, India is at least coeval with China and Egypt, the three constituting the most ancient civilizations of the world. While Western Europe was still the abode of barbarians, and while even Greece had scarcely felt the impulse which aroused her to intellectual life, the fabrics of India had reached a marvelous degree of fineness and beauty; and the monarchs of the West counted it a great privilege to be clothed in the "purple and fine linen" of the Orient.