Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
The Mayflowers
By John Greenleaf Whittier (18071892)
S
And nursed by winter gales,
With petals of the sleeted spars,
And leaves of frozen sails!
Within her ice-rimmed bay,
In common with the wild-wood flowers,
The first sweet smiles of May?
Who saw the blossoms peer
Above the brown leaves, dry and dead,
“Behold our Mayflower here!”
Our years of wandering o’er,
For us the Mayflower of the sea
Shall spread her sails no more.”
As sweetly now as then
Ye bloom on many a birchen slope,
In many a pine-dark glen.
Unchanged, your leaves unfold,
Like love behind the manly strength
Of the brave hearts of old.
Their sturdy faith be ours,
And ours the love that overruns
Its rocky strength with flowers.
Its shadow round us draws;
The Mayflower of his stormy bay,
Our Freedom’s struggling cause.
To life the frozen sod;
And, through dead leaves of hope, shall spring
Afresh the flowers of God!