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Just in the gray of the dawn, as the mists uprose from the meadows,

There was a stir and a sound in the slumbering village of Plymouth;

Clanging and clicking of arms, and the order imperative, "Forward!"

Given in tone suppressed, a tramp of feet, and then silence.

Figures ten, in the mist, marched slowly out of the village.

Standish the stalwart it was, with eight of his valorous army,

Led by their Indian guide, by Hobomok, friend of the white men,

Northward marching to quell the sudden revolt of the savage.

Giants they seemed in the mist, or the mighty men of King David;

Giants in heart they were, who believed in God and the Bible,—

Ay, who believed in the smiting of Midianites and Philistines.

Over them gleamed far off the crimson banners of morning;

Under them loud on the sands, the serried billows, advancing,

Fired along the line, and in regular order retreated.

* * * * *

Meanwhile the stalwart Miles Standish was marching steadily northward,

Winding through forest and swamp, and along the trend of the sea-shore.

* * * * *

After a three days' march he came to an Indian encampment

Pitched on the edge of a meadow, between the sea and the forest;

Women at work by the tents, and warriors, horrid with war-paint,

Seated about a fire, and smoking and talking together;

Who, when they saw from afar the sudden approach of the white men,

Saw the flash of the sun on breastplate and sabre and musket,

Straightway leaped to their feet, and two, from among them advancing,

Came to parley with Standish, and offer him furs as a present;

Friendship was in their looks, but in their hearts there was hatred.

Braves of the tribe were these, and brothers, gigantic in stature,

Huge as Goliath of Gath, or the terrible Og, king of Bashan;

One was Pecksuot named, and the other was called Wattawamat.

Round their necks were suspended their knives in scabbards of wampum,

Two-edged, trenchant knives, with points as sharp as a needle.

Other arms had they none, for they were cunning and crafty.

"Welcome, English!" they said,—these words they had learned from the traders

Touching at times on the coast, to barter and chaffer for peltries.

Then in their native tongue they began to parley with Standish,

Through his guide and interpreter, Hobomok, friend of the white man,

Begging for blankets and knives, but mostly for muskets and powder,

Kept by the white man, they said, concealed, with the plague, in his cellars,

Ready to be let loose, and destroy his brother the red man!

But when Standish refused, and said he would give them the Bible,

Suddenly changing their tone, they began to boast and to bluster.

Then Wattawamat advanced with a stride in front of the other,

And, with a lofty demeanor, thus vauntingly spake to the Captain:

"Now Wattawamat can see, by the fiery eyes of the Captain,

Angry is he in his heart; but the heart of the brave Wattawamat

Is not afraid of the sight. He was not born of a woman,

But on a mountain at night, from an oak-tree riven by lightning,

Forth he sprang at a bound, with all his weapons about him,

Shouting, 'Who is there here to fight with the brave Wattawamat?'"

Then he unsheathed his knife, and, whetting the blade on his left hand,

Held it aloft and displayed a woman's face on the handle;

Saying, with bitter expression and look of sinister meaning:

"I have another at home, with the face of a man on the handle;

By and by they shall marry; and there will be plenty of children!"

Then stood Pecksuot forth, self-vaunting, insulting Miles Standish:

While with his fingers he patted the knife that hung at his bosom,

Drawing it half from its sheath, and plunging it back, as he muttered,

"By and by it shall see; it shall eat; ah, ha! but shall speak not!

This is the mighty Captain the white men have sent to destroy us!

He is a little man; let him go and work with the women!"

Meanwhile Standish had noted the faces and figures of Indians

Peeping and creeping about from bush to tree in the forest,

Feigning to look for game, with arrows set on their bow-strings,

Drawing about him still closer and closer the net of their ambush.

But undaunted he stood, and dissembled and treated them smoothly;

So the old chronicles say, that were writ in the days of the fathers.

But when he heard their defiance, the boast, the taunt, and the insult,

All the hot blood of his race, of Sir Hugh and of Thurston de Standish,

Boiled and beat in his heart, and swelled in the veins of his temples.

Headlong he leaped on the boaster, and, snatching his knife from its scabbard,

Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling backward, the savage

Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiendlike fierceness upon it.

Straight there arose from the forest the awful sound of the war-whoop.

And, like a flurry of snow on the whistling wind of December,

Swift and sudden and keen came a flight of feathery arrows.

Then came a cloud of smoke, and out of the cloud came the lightning,

Out of the lightning thunder; and death unseen ran before it.

Frightened the savages fled for shelter in swamp and in thicket,

Hotly pursued and beset; but their sachem, the brave Wattawamat,

Fled not; he was dead. Unswerving and swift had a bullet

Passed through his brain, and he fell with both hands clutching the greensward,

Seeming in death to hold back from his foe the land of his fathers.

There on the flowers of the meadow the warriors lay, and above them,

Silent, with folded arms, stood Hobomok, friend of the white man.

Smiling at length he exclaimed to the stalwart Captain of Plymouth:—

"Pecksuot bragged very loud, of his courage, his strength, and his stature,—

Mocked the great Captain, and called him a little man; but I see now

Big enough have you been to lay him speechless before you!"

Thus the first battle was fought and won by the stalwart Miles Standish.

When the tidings thereof were brought to the village of Plymouth,

And as a trophy of war the head of the brave Wattawamat

Scowled from the roof of the fort, which at once was a church and a fortress,

All who beheld it rejoiced, and praised the Lord, and took courage.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

By the end of 1624 Plymouth was in a thriving condition. Its inhabitants numbered nearly two hundred, and it boasted thirty-two dwelling-houses. Other colonies soon sprang up about the Bay—Piscataqua (Portsmouth), Naumkeag (Salem), Nantasket (Hull), and Winnisimmet (Chelsea). The trials and pleasures of life in New England at about this time are humorously described in what are perhaps the first verses written by an American colonist.

NEW ENGLAND'S ANNOYANCES

[1630]

New England's annoyances, you that would know them,

Pray ponder these verses which briefly doth shew them.

The Place where we live is a wilderness Wood,

Where Grass is much wanting that's fruitful and good:

Our Mountains and Hills and our Vallies below

Being commonly cover'd with Ice and with Snow;

And when the North-west Wind with violence blows,

Then every Man pulls his Cap over his Nose:

But if any's so hardy and will it withstand,

He forfeits a Finger, a Foot, or a Hand.

But when the Spring opens, we then take the Hoe,

And make the Ground ready to plant and to sow;

Our Corn being planted and Seed being sown,

The Worms destroy much before it is grown;

And when it is growing, some spoil there is made

By Birds and by Squirrels that pluck up the Blade;

And when it is come to full Corn in the Ear,

It is often destroy'd by Raccoon and by Deer.

And now do our Garments begin to grow thin,

And Wool is much wanted to card and to spin;

If we can get a Garment to cover without,

Our other In-Garments are Clout upon Clout:

Our Clothes we brought with us are apt to be torn,

They need to be clouted soon after they're worn;

But clouting our Garments they hinder us nothing:

Clouts double are warmer than single whole Clothing.

If fresh Meat be wanting, to fill up our Dish,

We have Carrots and Turnips as much as we wish;

And is there a mind for a delicate Dish,

We repair to the Clam-banks, and there we catch Fish.

For Pottage and Puddings, and Custards and Pies,

Our Pumpkins and Parsnips are common supplies;

We have Pumpkins at morning, and Pumpkins at noon;

If it was not for Pumpkins we should be undone.

If Barley be wanting to make into Malt,

We must be contented, and think it no fault;

For we can make Liquor to sweeten our Lips

Of Pumpkins and Parsnips and Walnut-Tree Chips.

* * * * *

Now while some are going let others be coming,

For while Liquor's boiling it must have a scumming;

But I will not blame them, for Birds of a Feather,

By seeking their Fellows, are flocking together.

But you whom the Lord intends hither to bring,

Forsake not the Honey for fear of the Sting;

But bring both a quiet and contented Mind,

And all needful Blessings you surely will find.

The Old Colony's palmy days were of short duration, for it was soon overshadowed by a more wealthy and vigorous neighbor, founded by the powerful Puritan party.

THE PILGRIM FATHERS

I

Well worthy to be magnified are they

Who, with sad hearts, of friends and country took

A last farewell, their loved abodes forsook,

And hallowed ground in which their fathers lay;

Then to the new-found World explored their way,

That so a Church, unforced, uncalled to brook

Ritual restraints, within some sheltering nook

Her Lord might worship and his word obey

In freedom. Men they were who could not bend;

Blest Pilgrims, surely, as they took for guide

A will by sovereign Conscience sanctified;

Blest while their Spirits from the woods ascend

Along a Galaxy that knows no end,

But in His glory who for Sinners died.

II

From Rite and Ordinance abused they fled

To Wilds where both were utterly unknown;

But not to them had Providence foreshown

What benefits are missed, what evils bred,

In worship neither raised nor limited

Save by Self-will. Lo! from that distant shore,

For Rite and Ordinance, Piety is led

Back to the Land those Pilgrims left of yore,

Led by her own free choice. So Truth and Love

By Conscience governed do their steps retrace.—

Fathers! your Virtues, such the power of grace,

Their spirit, in your Children, thus approve.

Transcendent over time, unbound by place,

Concord and Charity in circles move.

William Wordsworth.

When Charles I came to the throne, in 1625, with the expressed determination to harry the Puritans out of England, the latter decided to seek an asylum in the New World. In 1628 John Endicott and a few others secured a patent from the New England Council for a trading-company, the grant including a strip of land across the continent from a line three miles north of the Merrimac to another three miles south of the Charles. It was into this colony, known as Massachusetts, that the older colony of Plymouth was finally absorbed.

THE PILGRIM FATHERS

The Pilgrim Fathers,—where are they?

The waves that brought them o'er

Still roll in the bay, and throw their spray

As they break along the shore;

Still roll in the bay, as they rolled that day

When the Mayflower moored below;

When the sea around was black with storms,

And white the shore with snow.

The mists that wrapped the Pilgrim's sleep

Still brood upon the tide;

And his rocks yet keep their watch by the deep

To stay its waves of pride.

But the snow-white sail that he gave to the gale,

When the heavens looked dark, is gone,—

As an angel's wing through an opening cloud

Is seen, and then withdrawn.

The pilgrim exile,—sainted name!

The hill whose icy brow

Rejoiced, when he came, in the morning's flame,

In the morning's flame burns now.

And the moon's cold light, as it lay that night

On the hillside and the sea,

Still lies where he laid his houseless head,—

But the Pilgrim! where is he?

The Pilgrim Fathers are at rest:

When summer's throned on high,

And the world's warm breast is in verdure drest,

Go, stand on the hill where they lie.

The earliest ray of the golden day

On that hallowed spot is cast;

And the evening sun, as he leaves the world,

Looks kindly on that spot last.

The Pilgrim spirit has not fled:

It walks in noon's broad light;

And it watches the bed of the glorious dead,

With the holy stars by night.

It watches the bed of the brave who have bled,

And still guard this ice-bound shore,

Till the waves of the bay, where the Mayflower lay,

Shall foam and freeze no more.

John Pierpont.

King Charles, little suspecting that he was providing an asylum for the Puritans, confirmed the patent by a royal charter to "The Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." No place for the meetings of the company had been named in the charter, and the audacious plan was formed to remove it, patents, charter, and all, to New England. Secret meetings were held, the old officers were finally got rid of, and John Winthrop was elected governor. Winthrop sailed for America on April 7, 1630, and arrived at Salem June 12. It was the beginning of a great emigration, for, in the four months that followed, seventeen ships arrived, with nearly a thousand passengers.

THE THANKSGIVING IN BOSTON HARBOR

[June 12, 1630]

"Praise ye the Lord!" The psalm to-day

Still rises on our ears,

Borne from the hills of Boston Bay

Through five times fifty years,

When Winthrop's fleet from Yarmouth crept

Out to the open main,

And through the widening waters swept,

In April sun and rain.

"Pray to the Lord with fervent lips,"

The leader shouted, "pray;"

And prayer arose from all the ships

As faded Yarmouth Bay.

They passed the Scilly Isles that day,

And May-days came, and June,

And thrice upon the ocean lay

The full orb of the moon.

And as that day, on Yarmouth Bay,

Ere England sunk from view,

While yet the rippling Solent lay

In April skies of blue,

"Pray to the Lord with fervent lips,"

Each morn was shouted, "pray;"

And prayer arose from all the ships,

As first in Yarmouth Bay;

Blew warm the breeze o'er Western seas,

Through Maytime morns, and June,

Till hailed these souls the Isles of Shoals,

Low 'neath the summer moon;

And as Cape Ann arose to view,

And Norman's Woe they passed,

The wood-doves came the white mists through,

And circled round each mast.

"Pray to the Lord with fervent lips,"

Then called the leader, "pray;"

And prayer arose from all the ships,

As first in Yarmouth Bay.

Above the sea the hill-tops fair—

God's towers—began to rise,

And odors rare breathe through the air,

Like balms of Paradise.

Through burning skies the ospreys flew,

And near the pine-cooled shores

Danced airy boat and thin canoe,

To flash of sunlit oars.

"Pray to the Lord with fervent lips,"

The leader shouted, "pray!"

Then prayer arose, and all the ships

Sailed into Boston Bay.

The white wings folded, anchors down,

The sea-worn fleet in line,

Fair rose the hills where Boston town

Should rise from clouds of pine;

Fair was the harbor, summit-walled,

And placid lay the sea.

"Praise ye the Lord," the leader called;

"Praise ye the Lord," spake he.

"Give thanks to God with fervent lips,

Give thanks to God to-day,"

The anthem rose from all the ships,

Safe moored in Boston Bay.

"Praise ye the Lord!" Primeval woods

First heard the ancient song,

And summer hills and solitudes

The echoes rolled along.

The Red Cross flag of England blew Above the fleet that day, While Shawmut's triple peaks in view In amber hazes lay. "Praise ye the Lord with fervent lips, Praise ye the Lord to-day," The anthem rose from all the ships Safe moored in Boston Bay.

The Arabella leads the song—

The Mayflower sings below,

That erst the Pilgrims bore along

The Plymouth reefs of snow.

Oh! never be that psalm forgot

That rose o'er Boston Bay,

When Winthrop sang, and Endicott,

And Saltonstall, that day:

"Praise ye the Lord with fervent lips,

Praise ye the Lord to-day;"

And praise arose from all the ships,

Like prayers in Yarmouth Bay.

That psalm our fathers sang we sing,

That psalm of peace and wars,

While o'er our heads unfolds its wing

The flag of forty stars.

And while the nation finds a tongue

For nobler gifts to pray,

'Twill ever sing the song they sung

That first Thanksgiving Day:

"Praise ye the Lord with fervent lips,

Praise ye the Lord to-day;"

So rose the song from all the ships,

Safe moored in Boston Bay.

Our fathers' prayers have changed to psalms,

As David's treasures old

Turned, on the Temple's giant arms,

To lily-work of gold.

Ho! vanished ships from Yarmouth's tide,

Ho! ships of Boston Bay,

Your prayers have crossed the centuries wide

To this Thanksgiving Day!

We pray to God with fervent lips,

We praise the Lord to-day,

As prayers arose from Yarmouth ships,

But psalms from Boston Bay.

Hezekiah Butterworth.

But the condition of the colonists was for the most part pitiful, and food was so scarce that shell-fish served for meat and acorns for bread. Winthrop had foreseen this and had engaged Captain William Pierce, of the ship Lion, to go in all haste to the nearest port in Ireland for provisions. Food-stuffs were nearly as scarce there as in America, and Pierce was forced to go on to London, where he was again delayed. A fast was appointed throughout the settlements for February 22, 1631, to implore divine succor. On the 21st, as Winthrop "was distributing the last handful of meal in the barrel unto a poor man distressed by the wolf at the door, at that instant they spied a ship arrived at the harbour's mouth, laden with provisions for them all." The ship was the Lion, and the fast day was changed into a day of feasting and thanksgiving.

THE FIRST THANKSGIVING

[February 22, 1631]

It was Captain Pierce of the Lion who strode the streets of London,

Who stalked the streets in the blear of morn and growled in his grisly beard;

By Neptune! quoth this grim sea-dog, I fear that my master's undone! 'Tis a bitter thing if all for naught through the drench of the deep I've steered!

He had come from out of the ultimate West through the spinning drift and the smother,

Come for a guerdon of golden grain for a hungry land afar;

And he thought of many a wasting maid, and of many a sad-eyed mother,

And how their gaze would turn and turn for a sail at the harbor bar.

But famine lay on the English isle, and grain was a hoarded treasure,

So ruddy the coin must gleam to loose the lock of the store-house door;

And under his breath the Captain groaned because of his meagre measure,

And the grasping souls of those that held the keys to the precious store.

But he flung a laugh and a fleer at doubt, and braving the roaring city

He faced them out—those moiling men whose greed had grown to a curse—

Till at last he found in the strenuous press a heart that was moved to pity,

And he gave the Governor's bond and word for what he lacked in his purse.

So the Lion put her prow to the West in the wild and windy weather,

Her sails all set, though her decks were wet with the driving scud and the foam;

Never an hour would the Captain hold his staunch little craft in tether, For the haunting thought of hungry eyes was the lure that called him home.

Sooth, in the streets of Boston-town was the heavy sound of sorrow,

For an iron frost had bound the wold, and the sky hung bleak and dread;

Despair sat dark on the face of him who dared to think of the morrow,

When not a crust could the goodwife give if the children moaned for bread.

But hark, from the wintry waterside a loud and lusty cheering,

That sweeps the sullen streets of the town as a wave the level strand!

A sail! a sail! upswelled the cry, speeding the vessel steering Out of the vast of the misty sea in to the waiting land.

Turn the dimming page of the past that the dust of the years is dry on.

And see the tears in the eyes of Joy as the ship draws in to the shore,

And see the genial glow on the face of Captain Pierce of the Lion,

As the Governor grips his faithful hand and blesses him o'er and o'er!

Oh, the rapture of that release! Feasting instead of fasting!

Happiness in the heart of the home, and hope with its silver ray!

Oh, the songs of prayer and praise to the Lord God everlasting

That mounted morn and noon and eve on that first Thanksgiving Day!

Clinton Scollard.

In the four years that followed, the worst hardships of the new plantation were outlived, and between three and four thousand Englishmen were distributed among the twenty hamlets along and near the sea-shore. The fight for a foothold had been won.

NEW ENGLAND'S GROWTH

From a fragmentary poem on "New England"

Famine once we had,

But other things God gave us in full store,

As fish and ground-nuts to supply our strait,

That we might learn on Providence to wait;

And know, by bread man lives not in his need.

But by each word that doth from God proceed.

But a while after plenty did come in,

From His hand only who doth pardon sin,

And all did flourish like the pleasant green,

Which in the joyful spring is to be seen.

Almost ten years we lived here alone,

In other places there were few or none;

For Salem was the next of any fame,

That began to augment New England's name;

But after multitudes began to flow,

More than well knew themselves where to bestow;

Boston then began her roots to spread,

And quickly soon she grew to be the head,

Not only of the Massachusetts Bay,

But all trade and commerce fell in her way.

And truly it was admirable to know,

How greatly all things here began to grow.

New plantations were in each place begun,

And with inhabitants were filled soon.

All sorts of grain which our own land doth yield,

Was hither brought and sown in every field:

As wheat and rye, barley, oats, beans and pease,

Here all thrive, and they profit from them raise.

All sorts of roots and herbs in gardens grow,

Parsnips, carrots, turnips, or what you'll sow.

Onions, melons, cucumbers, radishes,

Skirets, beets, coleworts, and fair cabbages.

Here grow fine flowers many, and 'mongst those,

The fair white lily and sweet fragrant rose.

Many good wholesome berries here you'll find,

Fit for man's use, almost of every kind,

Pears, apples, cherries, plumbs, quinces, and peach,

Are now no dainties; you may have of each. Nuts and grapes of several sorts are here, If you will take the pains them to seek for.

William Bradford.

There remained but one danger, the Indians; and most feared of all were the Pequots, who dwelt just west of what is now Rhode Island, and in 1637 began open hostilities. A force of about a hundred men marched against the principal Pequot stronghold, a palisaded village which stood on a hilltop near the Mystic. The attack was made on the night of May 25, 1637, the Indians were taken by surprise, their thatched houses were set on fire, and of the six or seven hundred persons in the village, scarcely one escaped.

THE ASSAULT ON THE FORTRESS

From "The Destruction of the Pequods"

[May 25, 1637]

Through verdant banks where Thames's branches glide,

Long held the Pequods an extensive sway;

Bold, savage, fierce, of arms the glorious pride,

And bidding all the circling realms obey.

Jealous, they saw the tribes, beyond the sea,

Plant in their climes; and towns, and cities, rise;

Ascending castles foreign flags display;

Mysterious art new scenes of life devise;

And steeds insult the plains, and cannon rend the skies.

The rising clouds the savage chief descried,

And, round the forest, bade his heroes arm;

To arms the painted warriors proudly hied,

And through surrounding nations rung the alarm.

The nations heard; but smiled, to see the storm,

With ruin fraught, o'er Pequod mountains driven

And felt infernal joy the bosom warm,

To see their light hang o'er the skirts of even,

And other suns arise, to gild a kinder heaven.

Swift to the Pequod fortress Mason sped,

Far in the wildering wood's impervious gloom;

A lonely castle, brown with twilight dread;

Where oft the embowelled captive met his doom,

And frequent heaved, around the hollow tomb,

Scalps hung in rows, and whitening bones were strew'd;

Where, round the broiling babe, fresh from the womb,

With howls the Powow fill'd the dark abode,

And screams and midnight prayers invoked the evil god.

But now no awful rites, nor potent spell,

To silence charm'd the peals of coming war;

Or told the dread recesses of the dell,

Where glowing Mason led his bands from far;

No spirit, buoyant on his airy car,

Controll'd the whirlwind of invading fight:

Deep died in blood, dun evening's falling star

Sent sad o'er western hills its parting light,

And no returning morn dispersed the long, dark night.

On the drear walls a sudden splendor glow'd,

There Mason shone, and there his veterans pour'd.

Anew the hero claim'd the fiends of blood,

While answering storms of arrows round him shower'd,

And the war-scream the ear with anguish gored.

Alone, he burst the gate; the forest round

Reëchoed death; the peal of onset roar'd,

In rush'd the squadrons; earth in blood was drown'd;

And gloomy spirits fled, and corses hid the ground.

Not long in dubious fight the host had striven,

When, kindled by the musket's potent flame,

In clouds, and fire, the castle rose to heaven,

And gloom'd the world, with melancholy beam.

Then hoarser groans, with deeper anguish, came;

And fiercer fight the keen assault repell'd:

Nor e'en these ills the savage breast could tame;

Like hell's deep caves, the hideous region yell'd,

Till death, and sweeping fire, laid waste the hostile field.

Timothy Dwight.

Sassacus, the Pequot chief, escaped and sought refuge with the Mohawks, but was slain by them.

DEATH SONG

[1673]

Great Sassacus fled from the eastern shores,

Where the sun first shines, and the great sea roars,

For the white men came from the world afar,

And their fury burnt like the bison star.

His sannops were slain by their thunder's power,

And his children fell like the star-eyed flower;

His wigwams were burnt by the white man's flame, And the home of his youth has a stranger name—

His ancestor once was our countryman's foe,

And the arrow was plac'd in the new-strung bow,

The wild deer ranged through the forest free,

While we fought with his tribe by the distant sea.

But the foe never came to the Mohawk's tent,

With his hair untied, and his bow unbent,

And found not the blood of the wild deer shed,

And the calumet lit and the bear-skin bed.

But sing ye the Death Song, and kindle the pine,

And bid its broad light like his valor to shine;

Then raise high his pile by our warriors' heaps,

And tell to his tribe that his murderer sleeps.

Alonzo Lewis.

OUR COUNTRY

On primal rocks she wrote her name;

Her towers were reared on holy graves;

The golden seed that bore her came

Swift-winged with prayer o'er ocean waves.

The Forest bowed his solemn crest,

And open flung his sylvan doors;

Meek Rivers led the appointed guest

To clasp the wide-embracing shores;

Till, fold by fold, the broidered land

To swell her virgin vestments grew,

While sages, strong in heart and hand,

Her virtue's fiery girdle drew.

O Exile of the wrath of kings!

O Pilgrim Ark of Liberty!

The refuge of divinest things,

Their record must abide in thee!

First in the glories of thy front

Let the crown-jewel, Truth, be found;

Thy right hand fling, with generous wont,

Love's happy chain to farthest bound!

Let Justice, with the faultless scales,

Hold fast the worship of thy sons;

Thy Commerce spread her shining sails

Where no dark tide of rapine runs!

So link thy ways to those of God,

So follow firm the heavenly laws,

That stars may greet thee, warrior-browed,

And storm-sped angels hail thy cause!

O Lord, the measure of our prayers,

Hope of the world in grief and wrong,

Be thine the tribute of the years,

The gift of Faith, the crown of Song!

Julia Ward Howe.