In Other Words/The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers
“The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers”
(The Pilgrim Fathers have virtues ascribed to them which
they never possessed—Prof. Albert Bushnell Hart.)
The breaking waves dashed high On a warm and pleasant coast,And the woods against an azure sky Their Parrish branches toss’d;
And the summer night hung dark The hills and waters o’er,When those summer tourists moor’d their bark On the swell New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes, They, the weak-hearted, came.But, like a bunch of exiled bums, Trying to beat the game.
There were men with thinning hair Amidst that pilgrim class;Why had they come to wither there In a burg like Plymouth, Mass.?
What did they there for weeks? I do not know, I’m sure,Unless, perhaps, they made “Antiques” And “real old furniture.”