Read Ebook: Rhymes of Old Plimouth by Randall Herbert

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 370 lines and 18639 words, and 8 pages

A Pastoral 55

The White Pine 56

The Colonial Pioneer 57

The Lindens 58

The Old Rockin' Chair 59

Out of Gethsamane 60

Greetings 61

Love o' My Heart 62

To a Friend 63

"Aunt Sally" 64

Intimacy 65

My Mother's "Bible-Book" 66

My Faith 68

An Apostrophe 69

Glimmer 70

A Nocturne 71

The Invisible 72

Antiphonal 73

Lady May 74

A Fragment 75

Away From Home 76

Grandma Brown 78

Slumber Song 80

The Enigma 81

The Passing of the Old Elm 82

Afterward 84

"The Pilgrim Spirit" 86

In Memoriam 87

L'Envoi 88

TO MY PILGRIM MOTHER.

To her who sanctified the simple things of life, Across the journeying years I bring A wreath of amaranth and asphodel To mingle with the everlasting light about her brow, And on her breast, serene, I fold the glory of an angel's wing.

Singlehurst, Plympton, Massachusetts.

THE TRYST OF NATIONS.

Tremendous dawn! that turns its back upon a fumbling past, and then, in radiant ecstasy, sweeps up the heavens, down the spaces of the wind, revealing, healing, seeking out the darkest places of the world.

Night, still crimsoned by the blood of sacrifice, has sung its Sorrow-Song; we must forget, and pray for those who day by day must grow more intimate with pain, or some unspoken loneliness.

O Dawn of Love's completion, though earth still trembles we no longer fear imperial will, and, phoenix-like, the peasant rises from the dust, stares with his blinded eyes, and praises God.

Cold Royalty, intolerable, an outcast, false and dull, the cruel lines about its lips still tightly drawn--lost in the art of savagery--sees not the new rich dawn, hears not the herald-trumpetings, knows not the meaning of a broken crown.

Written for the Pilgrim Tercentenary, Plymouth, 1921.

PLYMOUTH ROCK.

Archaic sphinx, but speak to me Of things when this old world was new, When Chaos was baptized in fire, Such secrets must be known to you. Would that the magic wand were mine To rend the silence! Yours the heart More wise than babbling multitudes; Of what strange scenes were you a part? An offspring of some glacial slope, You may have been a thing of grace Some ancient caryatid poised, To hold Earth's architrave in place.

'Tis here I lift my humble prayers, And thanks for Life's sweet mysteries, For joy of song within my soul, And chant its solemn histories; If kings shall reign, O make us kings, On seas and on the land, Kings of the One Great Church where all Shall bow at Love's command.

Thou prophet, orb, and corner-stone, As things immortal are as one, Clad in the garb of wonder-fire, Of gloom and the Olympian sun, I bring a spray of arbutus, From underneath the snow and sleet, The angels fashioned like a star, And drop at your anointed feet.

TO THE STANDISH GUARDS OF THE OLD COLONY.

New England's old three-cornered hat still guards this ancient town, The men who followed Lafayette are marching up and down. The spirit born at Lexington, and all the men are here, With fife and drum, and here they come, and each a brigadier! The heirs of Freedom ne'er broke ranks, or failed to face the brunt, In every fight for righteousness our men are at the front; In every battle fought for peace the past and future meet, And grenadiers and cavaliers still flank each home and street. The covenants our fathers made forever move in rhyme, They've never found the Port of Rest; the iron tongues of Time Are bugling men to saddle, and comrades, side by side, From Gettysburg to Flanders join in a dusty ride! And here they come! and there they come! The farmer and the knight, And dead men, shouting--"load and fire!" from parapets of light. And every one a mother's son, the khaki, and the gold, Old Glory prancing on ahead, a shout in every fold! In every star a mother's prayer, in every stripe is found A country's solace for the slain to wrap him, 'round and 'round. March on, and let your scabbards swing, your swords shall never rust; Ride! Ride! ye belted horsemen! the sacrificial trust Of bygone days is haloed by bayonet and scroll, Where millions read a simple creed that binds a nation's soul. High on the walls of Heaven it crowns a lifting sky; Hats off! ye peoples of the earth, America goes by!

Written on the return of the Plymouth Boys from the World War.

BURIAL HILL.

How many years have ripened, gone to seed, and died, Since first this Holy Precinct of the Dead was set apart and sanctified. Sunset and purple cloud have kept their vestal watch, The morning breezes played, And noontide spanned the waters, day by day; The lightnings and the frost disturb them nevermore, Wrapt in a reverie of God, they heed not if the Shepherd-stars be caring for a weary world or no, Or violets be budding in the melting snows. They wonder not at creeds of men, Or why their prayers are lost in space; Long since they found the sky-hung stretches of Eternity, The pastorals of peace. And yet, as 'twere a spectral mist, I half suspect they may return sometime, Remembering the beauty of this sylvan scene, The wide blue vista of the deep, Its glinting sails; Perhaps they come to brush away the withered leaves that clog our minds, And blaze a trail for Immortality, More sunshine and more flowers; To help us hear the blackbird's whistle in the trees, The rustle in the hedge, The whisper in the grass when dandelions bloom, The madrigals that lift the dampness hanging over graves.

THE OLD ROAD DOWN TO PLYMOUTH.

The old road down to Plymouth can never change for me, In vagabond abandon it roams a century, Braids through the dusky mornings, and evening's afterglow, An irridescent sunbeam, no matter where I go.

The old road down to Plymouth leads from a farmhouse door, Leads like a jewelled ribbon, a thousand miles or more; The door has lost its hinges, the barn has tumbled down, But the old road down to Plymouth, the only road in town,

Winds in and out the bluets, the butterflies and hay; I've sometimes made the journey a dozen times a day. And yonder lies the vision, a sheltered, calm retreat, For the old road down to Plymouth is a balm for weary feet.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet