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James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.

September 6

The Pilgrim Fathers

By William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

  • The ship Mayflower, bearing the Pilgrims, sailed from Southampton, England, Sept. 6, 1620.


  • WELL worthy to be magnified are they

    Who, with sad hearts, of friends and country took

    A last farewell, their loved abodes forsook,

    And hallowed ground in which their fathers lay;

    Then to the new-found World explored their way,

    That so a Church, unforced, uncalled to brook

    Ritual restraints, within some sheltering nook

    Her Lord might worship and His word obey

    In freedom. Men they were who could not bend;

    Blest Pilgrims, surely, as they took for guide

    A will by sovereign Conscience sanctified;

    Blest while their Spirits from the woods ascend

    Along a Galaxy that knows no end,

    But in His glory who for Sinners died.