Clouded with crime the sunset of their day
And warmed their winter’s hearths with fires accursed;
And if the stain that time wears not away
Of guilt was on the pilgrim axe that first
Our wood-paths’ roses blest with smiles from heaven,
In charity forget, and hope to be forgiven.
XXVI.
Forget their story’s cruelty and wrong;
Forget their story-teller; or but deem
His facts the fictions of a minstrel’s song,
The myths and marvels of a poet’s dream.
And are they not such? Suddenly among
My mind’s dark thoughts its boyhood’s sunrise beam
Breathes in spring balm and beauty o’er my page—
Joy! joy! my patriot wrath hath wronged the reverend sage.
XXVII.
Welcome! young boyhood, welcome! Of thy lore,
Thy morning-gathered wealth of prose and rhyme,
Of fruit the flower, of gold the infant ore,
The roughest shuns not manhood’s stormy clime,
But loves wild ocean’s winds and breakers’ roar;
While, of the blossoms of the sweet spring-time,
The bonniest, and most bountiful of joy,
Shrink from the man, and cling around the boy.
