Classic and Contemporary Poetry
FIRST LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS, by ROBERT SOUTHEY Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Days pass, winds veer, and favoring skies Last Line: Where, on the fatal shoals, the wreck lies whelmed below. Subject(s): Cape Cod; Pilgrim Fathers | ||||||||
DAYS pass, winds veer, and favoring skies Change like the face of fortune; storms arise; Safely, but not within her port desired, The good ship lies. Where the long sandy Cape Bends and embraces round, As with a lover's arm, the sheltered sea, A haven she hath found From adverse gales and boisterous billows free. Now strike your sails, Ye toilworn mariners, and take your rest Long as the fierce northwest In that wild fit prevails, Tossing the waves uptorn with frantic sway. Keep ye within the bay, Contented to delay Your course till the elemental madness cease, And heaven and ocean are again at peace. How gladly there, Sick of the uncomfortable ocean, The impatient passengers approach the shore; Escaping from the sense of endless motion, To feel firm earth beneath their feet once more, To breathe again the air With taint of bilge and cordage undefiled, And drink of living springs, if there they may, And with fresh fruits and wholesome food repair Their spirits, weary of the watery way. And oh! how beautiful The things of earth appear To eyes that far and near For many a week have seen Only the circle of the restless sea! With what a fresh delight They gaze again on fields and forests green, Hovel, or whatsoe'er May bear the trace of man's industrious hand; How grateful to their sight The shore of shelving sand, As the light boat moves joyfully to land! Woods they beheld, and huts, and piles of wood, And many a trace of toil, But not green fields or pastures. 'T was a land Of pines and sand; Dark pines, that from the loose and sparkling soil Rose in their strength aspiring: far and wide They sent their searching roots on every side, And thus, by depth and long extension, found Firm hold and grasp within that treacherous ground: So had they risen and flourished; till the earth, Unstable as its neighboring ocean there, Like an unnatural mother, heaped around Their trunks its wavy furrows white and high; And stifled thus the living things it bore. Half buried thus they stand, Their summits sere and dry, Marking, like monuments, the funeral mound; As when the masts of some tall vessel show Where, on the fatal shoals, the wreck lies whelmed below. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE MAYFLOWER [DECEMBER 21, 1620] by ERASTUS WOLCOTT ELLSWORTH BOSTON HYMN; READ IN MUSIC HALL, JANUARY 1, 1863 by RALPH WALDO EMERSON THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN NEW ENGLAND [NOVEMBER 19, 1620] by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THE PILGRIM FATHERS by JOHN PIERPONT THE FIRST PROCLAMATION OF MILES STANDISH [NOVEMBER 23, 1620] by MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON THE INDIAN'S WELCOME TO THE PILGRIM FATHERS by LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY SONG OF THE PILGRIMS [SEPTEMBER 16, 1620] by THOMAS COGSWELL UPHAM THE PILGRIM FATHERS by LEONARD BACON (1802-1881) BISHOP BRUNO by ROBERT SOUTHEY |
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