Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79.
Robinson of Leyden
By Oliver Wendell Holmes (18091894)H
His wandering flock had gone before,
But he, the shepherd, might not share
Their sorrows on the wintry shore.
Ere yet the Mayflower’s sail was spread,
While round his feet the Pilgrims clung,
The pastor spake, and thus he said:—
God calls you hence from over sea;
Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer,
Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee.
To tribes unnamed and shores untrod:
Heed well the lessons ye have heard
From those old teachers taught of God.
All light for all the coming days,
And Heaven’s eternal wisdom spent
In making straight the ancient ways:
For every flock, for every lamb,
Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose,
With Luther’s dike or Calvin’s dam.”
With tears of love and partings fond,
They floated down the creeping Maas,
Along the isle of Ysselmond.
The “Hook of Holland’s” shelf of sand,
And grated soon with lifting keel
The sullen shores of fatherland.
The mitred king behind the throne;
The sails were set, the pennons flew,
And westward ho! for worlds unknown.
The Pilgrims of the sunset wave,
Who won for us this virgin earth,
And freedom with the soil they gave.
In alien earth the exiles lie,—
Their nameless graves our holiest shrine,
His words our noblest battle-cry!
Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea!
Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer,
Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee!