Poems (Jordan)/The Puritans
THE PURITANS
Faces of dauntless purity—
Each feature carved with the heart-tools
Of strong Experience—Duty
Hath mothered you! Nor schools—
Of human fashioning—have taught
The knowledges, which thus have wrought
In ev'ry line, the Feeling—fraught
Expression—live expression,—of
Those days of long ago, when Love
(When Need cried out with Justice for the blow)
With brawny arm, crushed ev'ry foe
Which menaced rude-built homes, and by
Its sturdy goodness, thus hast made
A Fence about the Liberty
Of this, our Land! else had she strayed
To anarchy, and worn the path
To ruin hard with constant tread
Now—honored be ye all!—your Faith
Is by our Sight interpreted!
Each feature carved with the heart-tools
Of strong Experience—Duty
Hath mothered you! Nor schools—
Of human fashioning—have taught
The knowledges, which thus have wrought
In ev'ry line, the Feeling—fraught
Expression—live expression,—of
Those days of long ago, when Love
(When Need cried out with Justice for the blow)
With brawny arm, crushed ev'ry foe
Which menaced rude-built homes, and by
Its sturdy goodness, thus hast made
A Fence about the Liberty
Of this, our Land! else had she strayed
To anarchy, and worn the path
To ruin hard with constant tread
Now—honored be ye all!—your Faith
Is by our Sight interpreted!