Puritan Planters
The rocky slopes for emerald had changed their garb of gray
When the vessels from Connecticut came sailing up the Bay,
There were diamonds on every wave that drew the strangers on,
And bands of sapphire mist about the brows of Blomidon.
Five years in desolation the Acadian land had lain,
Five golden harvest moons had wooed the fallow fields in vain,
Five times the winter snows had slept and summer sunsets smiled
On lonely clumps of willows, and fruit trees growing wild.
There was silence in the forest and along the Minas shore,
And not a habitation from Canard to Beau Sejour,
But many a blackened rafter and many a broken wall
Told the story of Acadia's prosperity and fall;
And even in Nature's gladness, in the matchless month of June,
When every day she swept her harp and found the strings in tune,
The land seemed calling wildly for its owners far away,
The exiles scattered on the coast, from Maine to Charleston Bay,
Where with many bitter longings for their fair homes and their dead,
They bowed their heads in anguish and would not be comforted,
And like the Jewish exiles, long ago, beyond the sea,
Refused to sing the songs of home, in their captivity.
But the simple Norman peasant-folk shall till the land no more,
For the vessels from Connecticut have anchored by the shore,
And many a sturdy Puritan, his mind with Scripture stored,
Rejoices he has found at last, " the garden of the Lord. "
There are families from Tolland, from Killingworth and Lyme,
Gentle mothers, tender maidens, and strong men in their prime,
There are lovers who have plighted their vows in Coventry,
And sweet, confiding children, born in Newport by the sea.
They come as came the Hebrews into their promised land,
Not as to rough New England shores came first the Pilgrim band;
The Minas fields were fruitful, and the Gaspereau had borne
To seaward many a vessel with its freight of yellow corn.
They come with hearts as true as are their manners blunt and cold,
To found a race of noblemen of Calvinistic mould,
A race of earnest people whom the coming years shall teach
The broader ways of knowledge, and the gentler forms of speech.
They come as Puritans, but who shall say their hearts are blind
To the subtle charms of nature, and the love of humankind?
The rigorous New England laws have shaped their thought, 'tis true,
But human laws can never wholly Heaven's work undo,
And tears fall fast from many an eye, long time unused to weep,
For o'er the fields lie whitening the bones of cows and sheep,
The faithful cows that used to feed upon the broad Grand Pre,
And with their tinkling bells come slowly home at close of day.
And where the Acadian village stood, its roofs o'er-grown with moss,
And the simple wooden chapel, with its altar and its cross,
And where the forge of Basil sent its sparks toward the sky,
The purple thistle blossoms, and the pink fireweed grows high.
The broken dykes have been rebuilt, a century and more,
The cornfields stretch their furrows from Canard to Beau Sejour,
Five generations have been reared beside the broad Grand Pre,
Since the vessels from Connecticut came sailing up the Bay.
And now across the meadows, while the farmers reap and sow,
The engine shrieks its discords to the hills of Gaspereau,
And ever onward to the sea the restless Fundy tide
Bears playful pleasure yachts and busy trade ships, side by side.
And the Puritan has yielded to the softening touch of time,
Like him who still content remained in Killing-worth and Lyme,
And graceful homes of prosperous men make all the landscape fair,
And mellow creeds and ways of life are rooted everywhere.
And churches nestle lovingly on many a glad hillside,
And holy bells ring out their music in the eventide;
But here and there on untilled ground, apart from glebe or town,
Some lone, surviving apple tree stands blossomless and brown,
And many a traveller has found in summer, as he strayed,
Some long-forgotten cellar in the deepest thicket's shade,
And clumps of willows by the dykes, sweet-scented, fair, and green,
That seemed to tell again the story of Evangeline.
When the vessels from Connecticut came sailing up the Bay,
There were diamonds on every wave that drew the strangers on,
And bands of sapphire mist about the brows of Blomidon.
Five years in desolation the Acadian land had lain,
Five golden harvest moons had wooed the fallow fields in vain,
Five times the winter snows had slept and summer sunsets smiled
On lonely clumps of willows, and fruit trees growing wild.
There was silence in the forest and along the Minas shore,
And not a habitation from Canard to Beau Sejour,
But many a blackened rafter and many a broken wall
Told the story of Acadia's prosperity and fall;
And even in Nature's gladness, in the matchless month of June,
When every day she swept her harp and found the strings in tune,
The land seemed calling wildly for its owners far away,
The exiles scattered on the coast, from Maine to Charleston Bay,
Where with many bitter longings for their fair homes and their dead,
They bowed their heads in anguish and would not be comforted,
And like the Jewish exiles, long ago, beyond the sea,
Refused to sing the songs of home, in their captivity.
But the simple Norman peasant-folk shall till the land no more,
For the vessels from Connecticut have anchored by the shore,
And many a sturdy Puritan, his mind with Scripture stored,
Rejoices he has found at last, " the garden of the Lord. "
There are families from Tolland, from Killingworth and Lyme,
Gentle mothers, tender maidens, and strong men in their prime,
There are lovers who have plighted their vows in Coventry,
And sweet, confiding children, born in Newport by the sea.
They come as came the Hebrews into their promised land,
Not as to rough New England shores came first the Pilgrim band;
The Minas fields were fruitful, and the Gaspereau had borne
To seaward many a vessel with its freight of yellow corn.
They come with hearts as true as are their manners blunt and cold,
To found a race of noblemen of Calvinistic mould,
A race of earnest people whom the coming years shall teach
The broader ways of knowledge, and the gentler forms of speech.
They come as Puritans, but who shall say their hearts are blind
To the subtle charms of nature, and the love of humankind?
The rigorous New England laws have shaped their thought, 'tis true,
But human laws can never wholly Heaven's work undo,
And tears fall fast from many an eye, long time unused to weep,
For o'er the fields lie whitening the bones of cows and sheep,
The faithful cows that used to feed upon the broad Grand Pre,
And with their tinkling bells come slowly home at close of day.
And where the Acadian village stood, its roofs o'er-grown with moss,
And the simple wooden chapel, with its altar and its cross,
And where the forge of Basil sent its sparks toward the sky,
The purple thistle blossoms, and the pink fireweed grows high.
The broken dykes have been rebuilt, a century and more,
The cornfields stretch their furrows from Canard to Beau Sejour,
Five generations have been reared beside the broad Grand Pre,
Since the vessels from Connecticut came sailing up the Bay.
And now across the meadows, while the farmers reap and sow,
The engine shrieks its discords to the hills of Gaspereau,
And ever onward to the sea the restless Fundy tide
Bears playful pleasure yachts and busy trade ships, side by side.
And the Puritan has yielded to the softening touch of time,
Like him who still content remained in Killing-worth and Lyme,
And graceful homes of prosperous men make all the landscape fair,
And mellow creeds and ways of life are rooted everywhere.
And churches nestle lovingly on many a glad hillside,
And holy bells ring out their music in the eventide;
But here and there on untilled ground, apart from glebe or town,
Some lone, surviving apple tree stands blossomless and brown,
And many a traveller has found in summer, as he strayed,
Some long-forgotten cellar in the deepest thicket's shade,
And clumps of willows by the dykes, sweet-scented, fair, and green,
That seemed to tell again the story of Evangeline.
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