An Ode Pronounced Before the Inhabitants of Boston, September the Seventeenth, 1830

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Inhabitants of Boston, September the Seventeenth, 1830, at the
Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of the City, by Charles
Sprague
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Title: An Ode Pronounced Before the Inhabitants of Boston, September
the Seventeenth, 1830,
at the Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of the City
Author: Charles Sprague
Release Date: September 16, 2007 [EBook #22626]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ODE
PRONOUNCED BEFORE THE INHABITANTS OF BOSTON
***
Produced by Bryan Ness, David Wilson and the Online
Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
AN ODE:
pronounced before the
INHABITANTS OF BOSTON,
September the seventeenth, 1830,

at the
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
of the
SETTLEMENT
OF THE CITY.
BY CHARLES SPRAGUE.
BOSTON:
John H. Eastburn ... City Printer.
MDCCCXXX.
CITY OF BOSTON.
In Common Council, September 17, 1830.
_Ordered_, That the Committee of Arrangements for the celebration of
this day be, and they are hereby, directed to present the thanks of the
City Council to CHARLES SPRAGUE, Esquire, for the elegant,
interesting and instructive Poem, this day pronounced by him, and
respectfully request a copy thereof for the press.
Sent up for Concurrence,
B. T. PICKMAN, _President_.
_In the Board of Aldermen, September 20, 1830._
Read and concurred.
H. G. OTIS, _Mayor_.
A true copy--Attest,
S. F. M'CLEARY, _City Clerk_.
_Boston, September 17, 1830._
Charles Sprague, Esq.
The Undersigned, the Committee of Arrangements for the Centennial
Celebration of the Settlement of Boston, have the honor to enclose you
an attested copy of a vote of the City Council, and respectfully ask your
compliance with the request contained therein.
Harrison Gray Otis,
Benjamin Russell,
Winslow Lewis,
Benjamin
T. Pickman,
Thomas Minns,
Joseph Eveleth,
John W. James,


John P. Bigelow,
Washington P. Gragg.
ODE.
I.
Not to the Pagan's mount I turn,
For inspiration now;
Olympus and
its gods I spurn--
Pure One, be with me, Thou!
Thou, in whose
awful name,
From suffering and from shame,
Our Fathers fled, and
braved a pathless sea;
Thou, in whose holy fear,
They fixed an empire here,
And gave it to
their Children and to Thee.
II.
And You! ye bright ascended Dead,
Who scorned the bigot's yoke,

Come, round this place your influence shed;
Your spirits I invoke.

Come, as ye came of yore,
When on an unknown shore,
Your
daring hands the flag of faith unfurled,
To float sublime,
Through future time,
The beacon-banner of
another world.
III.
Behold! they come--those sainted forms,
Unshaken through the strife
of storms;
Heaven's winter cloud hangs coldly down,
And earth
puts on its rudest frown;
But colder, ruder was the hand,
That drove
them from their own fair land,
Their own fair land--refinement's
chosen seat,
Art's trophied dwelling, learning's green retreat;
By
valour guarded, and by victory crowned,
For all, but gentle charity,
renowned.
With streaming eye, yet steadfast heart,
Even from that land they
dared to part,
And burst each tender tie;
Haunts, where their sunny

youth was passed,
Homes, where they fondly hoped at last
In
peaceful age to die;
Friends, kindred, comfort, all they spurned--

Their fathers' hallowed graves;
And to a world of darkness turned,

Beyond a world of waves.
IV.
When Israel's race from bondage fled,
Signs from on high the
wanderers led;
But here--Heaven hung no symbol here,
_Their_
steps to guide, _their_ souls to cheer;
They saw, thro' sorrow's
lengthening night,
Nought but the fagot's guilty light;
The cloud
they gazed at was the smoke,
That round their murdered brethren
broke.
Nor power above, nor power below,
Sustained them in their
hour of wo;
A fearful path they trod,
And dared a fearful doom;

To build an altar to their God,
And find a quiet tomb.
V.
But not alone, not all unblessed,
The exile sought a place of rest;

ONE dared with him to burst the knot,
That bound her to her native
spot;
Her low sweet voice in comfort spoke,
As round their bark the
billows broke;
She through the midnight watch was there;
With him
to bend her knees in prayer;
She trod the shore with girded heart,

Through good and ill to claim her part;
In life, in death, with him to
seal
Her kindred love, her kindred zeal.
VI.
They come--that coming who shall tell?
The eye may weep, the heart
may swell,
But the poor tongue in vain essays
A fitting note for
them to raise.
We hear the after-shout that rings
For them who
smote the power of kings;
The swelling triumph all would share,

But who the dark defeat would dare,
And boldly meet the wrath and
wo,
That wait the unsuccessful blow?

It were an envied fate, we
deem,
To live a land's recorded theme,
When we are in the tomb;


We, too, might yield the joys of home,
And waves of winter darkness
roam,
And tread a shore of gloom--
Knew we those waves, through
coming time,
Should roll our names to every clime;
Felt we that
millions on that shore
Should stand, our memory