ABOVE them spread a stranger sky <br />Around, the sterile plain, <br />The rock-bound coast rose frowning nigh, <br />Beyond,--the wrathful main: <br />Chill remnants of the wintry snow <br />Still chok'd the encumber'd soil, <br />Yet forth these Pilgrim Fathers go, <br />To mark their future toil. <br /> <br />'Mid yonder vale their corn must rise <br />In Summer's ripening pride, <br />And there the church-spire woo the skies <br />Its sister-school beside. <br />Perchance 'mid England's velvet green <br />Some tender thought repos'd,-- <br />Though nought upon their stoic mien <br />Such soft regret disclos'd. <br /> <br />When sudden from the forest wide <br />A red-brow'd chieftain came, <br />With towering form, and haughty stride, <br />And eye like kindling flame: <br />No wrath he breath'd, no conflict sought, <br />To no dark ambush drew, <br />But simply to the Old World brought, <br />The welcome of the New. <br /> <br />That welcome was a blast and ban <br />Upon thy race unborn. <br />Was there no seer, thou fated Man! <br />Thy lavish zeal to warn? <br />Thou in thy fearless faith didst hail <br />A weak, invading band, <br />But who shall heed thy children's wail, <br />Swept from their native land? <br /> <br />Thou gav'st the riches of thy streams, <br />The lordship o'er thy waves, <br />The region of thine infant dreams, <br />And of thy fathers' graves, <br />But who to yon proud mansions pil'd <br />With wealth of earth and sea, <br />Poor outcast from thy forest wild, <br />Say, who shall welcome thee<br /><br />Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-indian-s-welcome-to-the-pilgrim-fathers/
