The breaking waves dashed high
      On a stern and rock-bound coast,
    And the woods against a stormy sky
      Their giant branches tossed.

    And the heavy night hung dark
      The hills and waters o’er,
    When a band of exiles moored their bark
      On the wild New England shore.

    Not as the conqueror comes,
      They, the true-hearted, came;
    Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
      And the trumpet that sings of fame.

    Not as the flying come,
      In silence and in fear;
    They shook the depths of the desert gloom
      With their hymns of lofty cheer.

    Amid the storm they sang,
      And the stars heard, and the sea,
    And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
      To the anthem of the free!

    The ocean eagle soared
      From his nest by the white wave’s foam;
    And the rocking pines of the forest roared,—­
      This was their welcome home!

    There were men with hoary hair,
      Amid that pilgrim band;
    Why had they come to wither there,
      Away from their childhood’s land?

    There was woman’s fearless eye,
      Lit by her deep love’s truth;
    There was manhood’s brow serenely high,
      And the fiery heart of youth.

    What sought they thus afar? 
      Bright jewels of the mine? 
    The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?—­
      They sought a faith’s pure shrine!

    Ay! call it holy ground,
      The soil where first they trod: 
    They have left unstained what there they found,
      Freedom to worship God.

FELICIA HEMANS.

 THE LOTOS-EATERS.

 The main idea in “The Lotos-Eaters” is, are we justified in running
 away from unpleasant duties?  Or, is insensibility justifiable?

Laddie, do you recollect learning this poem after we had read the story of “Odysseus”?  “The struggle of the soul urged to action, but held back by the spirit of self-indulgence.”  These were the points we discussed.  Alfred Tennyson (1809-92).

   “Courage!” he said, and pointed toward the land,
   “This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.” 
    In the afternoon they came unto a land
    In which it seemed always afternoon. 
    All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
    Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. 
    Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
    And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
    Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

    A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
    Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
    And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,
    Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below. 
    They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
    From the inner land:  far off, three mountain-tops,
    Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
    Stood sunset-flush’d:  and, dew’d with showery drops,
    Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.