Firstspeaker:
"Have it to achieve;
We have it as they had it in their day,
A little in the grasp - more to achieve."
Then we hear these significant words:
"I wonder what the Pilgrims if they came
Would say to us, as Freemen? Is our freedom
Their freedom as they left it to our keeping,
Or would they know their own in modern guise?
Across the back of the field to the grand triumphal strains of
martial music pass the flags of the allies, so lighted that they
show brilliantly. Nearer move the French and British flags, and
then all wave and beckon. There follows a hush. Suddenly from
far out on the Mayflower a bugle calls in the darkness and light
begins to glow on the vessel, but very faintly.
Then again the voice from the Rock is heard: "The path of the
Mayflower must be forever free." Forty-eight young women bear
the state flags. The pageant ground is now ablaze with lights,
and as the wonderful chorus that has carried you on its mighty
tide of harmony dies away; the field darkens until there is only
light on the Mayflower.
Again the voice from the Rock fills the place with deep sonorous
tones, like celestial music, as we listen to these fitting
words: "With malice toward none and charity for all it is for us
to resolve that this nation under God shall have a new birth of
freedom."
What is there in Europe, or the whole world, in the way of
pageants that can compare with this? When we consider its
import, viewed in the full, bright light of the rising sun of
Liberty; wafted by the delicate electric threads of this busy
commercial world which are silently conveying with a certain
majesty of movement its significance, we may well say that this
celebrated one of the most eventful deeds of man since time
began.
"As we go back to that shadowy and evanescent period when
history and culture of ancient Chaldea unroll before us, with
the overpowering greatness of Assyria followed by the swift rise
and fall of Babylon, let us try and extract some truths in
regard to the growth of Civilization. Even though nations rise
and fall, and races come and go, has not human development been
ever upward and onward?"
Let us then look forward to the dawning of a better day. Let us
cherish those high ideals of liberty our fore-fathers so dearly
bought. Let us put on the strong armor of the Word of God which
was to them a shield and a buckler and move forward with firm,
steadfast hope toward a brighter dawn of Freedom, that shall
exceed that of the present as the light which gleamed from the
Mayflower exceeded in brilliancy that of the Old World.
Watching the lights slowly fade on the Mayflower we thought how
the Pilgrims had stood on the icy deck of the vessel, with the
winds blowing through the masts overhead and the waves roaring
about the black hull beneath, while they sang hymns of praise
for deliverance from the dangers of the sea.
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true hearted came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drams,
Or the trumpet that sings of fame.
Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear,
They shook the depths of the desert gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.
Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free.
- Felicia Henaans.
CHAPTER XII
LAKE CHAMPLAIN
How richly glows the water's breast,
Before us tinged with evening's hues,
When facing thus the crimson west,
The boat her silent course pursues,
And see how dark the backward stream,
A little moment past so smiling!
And still perhaps some faithless gleam,
Some other loiterer beguiling.
Such views the youthful bard allure,
But heedless of the following gloom,
He dreams their colors shall endure
Till peace go with him to the tomb.
And let him nurse his fond deceit;
And what if he must die in sorrow
Who would not cherish dreams so sweet;
Though grief and pain may come tomorrow.
- Wordsworth.
The ancients believed that the alchemists could create rose
blooms out of their ashes. We are prone to believe it for, at
the close of a fair New England day we have seen the Master
Alchemist, the sun, beneath his spacious workshop of July skies,
transmuting the gray mists and vapors into sunset's glow; and
lo! we had the blooming roses there. He melted his many
ingredients with the falling dew and distilled from them the
gold with which he burnished the western sky, making it glow
like a glassy sea. Seizing upon some more potent fluid, he threw
it among the fleecy clouds, kindling them all along the horizon
until they shone like a vast lake of flame; then taking his
magic wand, he waved it over the glowing mass and crimson
changed to rosy pink, pink to glowing purple; forming those
royal gates through which the magician passed behind the distant
foothills of the Adirondacks.
During such a pageant of splendor as this o'er head, did we
first behold the placid waters of Lake Champlain.
Far away beyond the Vermont shore rose the Green mountains
behind their misty veils of purplish-blue. High above the lower
undulations loomed the forest crowned ridges, gloriously colored
and radiant, forming a mysterious yet fitting background for the
exquisite picture before us. The nearer hills from their tops
and extending far down their sides were covered with evergreens;
below them a purple belt of deciduous trees and bright green
meadows made a vivid contrast; while the nearer valley was
filled with clumps of trees, fields of grain and crimson clover.
