Classic Poem

FOR A CELEBRATION IN KENTUCKY OF THE LANDING OF THE
PILGRIMS

Clime of the brave! the high heart's home,
 Laved by the wild and stormy sea!
Thy children, in this far-off land,
 Devote to-day their hearts to thee;
Our thoughts, despite of space and time,
To-day are in our native clime,
Where passed our sinless years, and where
Our infant heads first bowed in prayer.

Stern land! we love thy woods and rocks,
 Thy rushing streams, thy winter glooms,
And Memory, like a pilgrim gray,
 Kneels at thy temples and thy tombs:
The thoughts of these, where'er we dwell,
Come o'er us like a holy spell,
A star to light our path of tears,
A rainbow on the sky of years.

Above thy cold and rocky breast
 The tempest sweeps, the night-wind wails,
But Virtue, Peace, and Love, like birds
 Are nestled mid thy hills and vales;
And Glory, o'er each plain and glen,
Walks with thy free and iron men,
And lights her sacred beacon still
On Bennington and Bunker Hill.