["The vessel landed in December at a place that has since obtained the name of Forefathers' Rock, The first person that stepped out of the boat upon the rock, is said to have been a girl of the name of Mary Chilton."]

Parley's Tales.

Before thee a wilderness, stretching wide—
Behind thee was ocean, strong in pride!
Did not thy heart within thee fail,
Fair girl of England! thy cheek turn pale,
When, ocean-dangers o'ercome and past,
Thou didst find but a dreary home at last?
When, weary of waves and the water's roar,
Thou didst long for the dark green earth once more.
The wild birds' song, and the quiet breeze,
And the peaceful hum of the distant seas,—
For the vine-clad cottage beside the spring,
And the songs which thy childhood loved to sing?

In fancy I oft have pictured thee,
Young traveler over a bounding sea,
Standing upon an unknown shore,
The waves behind thee, the wilds before,
With one hand pressed to thy bosom near,
And one extended in awe and fear:
I have pictured thee on the sea-worn rock,
Free from the storm and the tempest-shock,
And thought of the home of thy infant glee;
Have fancied what thy heart said to thee,
As thou didst stand, by the sky defined,
With a look half sorrowful, half resigned.

There were kind ones with thee, the loved, the true;
Yet over the water thy fond heart flew,
And ties just broken were clasped again,
And bound once more in a silken chain;
The memories of childhood were dear to thee—
They are dear to us ever, on land or sea.
Perchance there were written upon thy heart
Scenes, which thy tongue might never impart.
Perchance there were whispered within thine ear
Words, none other than thine might hear,
For thee to remember, forever and aye,
When the scenes of thy girlhood were far away!

They are passed forever, those happy hours,
Vanished away with the birds and flowers!
They are gone! and their memories will return
But as the sunset, above an urn
Where the heart's best treasures, though rich and rare,
Must rest forever—forever there!
They are gone, but the music of far-off streams
Will be heard by thee in thy nightly dreams,
And words that have reached thee, familiar words,
Will melt through thy heart like the song of birds.
Breathing of home to thy dreaming mind,
Of hopes far distant, but unconfined.

What was thy fate? Did an early grave
Wait for thy passage over the wave?
Did the mournful memories of days long past
Thy grieved heart haunt, till it broke at last?
Did the murmured voices of other times
Call back thy spirit to fairer climes,
To visit once more thy birds and flowers,
To live again life's perfumed hours?
Or did the violet spring above
A bosom whose every throb was love,
And the wild bird build her nest on high,
Unconscious of her who slumbered nigh?

Or did the forest retreat before
Thine eyes from the ever-sounding shore?
Did blooming gardens bedeck the ground—
Did peaceful dwellings appear around—
Till thou sawest, at life's "eventful close,"
The "wilderness blossom as the rose?"
From the deep, dim woods did thy prayer ascend,
When thou watchedst the evening shadows blend?
Like incense from out the fragrant sod,
Didst thou pour thy spirit-voice abroad,
Hallowing the woods, so dark and dim,
With the solemn sound of thy vesper-hymn?

Ah! who may tell? there are none on earth
That may tell of thee, of thy timid work,
Of the love that dwelt in thy quiet breast,
For all earth's children, pure, unsuppressed.
We know not if beauty upon thy brow
Had placed her signet;—what matter, now?
We only know that thy foot trod here,
That thy name was Mary—that thou wert dear;
For every one hath some kindred heart,
As every soul hath a better part;
That at last thine eyes saw the stars no more,
And thy spirit went to the unknown shore.

Thoughts

Some random and debatable thoughts of mine^[1], if you've got time to lose^[2].

Here, the ultimate goal of technological optimization is to proofread without reading. Most of the human input is unnecessary, and we can go much faster without it.^[3].

We have a problem with documentation. We have some help pages, sure, but nearly no one actively takes care of those^[4], and there are many things that should be in there. The /doc subpages of templates are in most case good, but they're hard to find. We have a great lot of them, a nice help page that doesn't cover a lot of them and a category tree that is at the very least puzzling. Quite a lot of templates are in categories that make them hard to find^[5]. I am neither the first^[6], nor the second, to think we have a documentation issue. There have apparently been a number of attempts to fix this already, and they've more or less all dwindled to nothing.

We should not choose works for notability or usefulness, as they are both very relative. I personally choose the works I do because why not.

Notes

↑ with an absurd quantity of footnotes for not really necessary information. I am usually more of a parentheses user, but refs clutter the text less, even though it's a bit awkward
↑ and you probably do, if you landed here
↑ it is a bit ridiculous that I am taking time that I could have spent proofreading to write on how precious time is
↑ and despite my complaining about it most of the time I don't either
↑ e.g. {{ppoem}} in Category:Experimental templates
↑ and that was in 2012

[1] with an absurd quantity of footnotes for not really necessary information. I am usually more of a parentheses user, but refs clutter the text less, even though it's a bit awkward

[2] you probably do, if you landed here

[3] t is a bit ridiculous that I am taking time that I could have spent proofreading to write on how precious time is

[4] spite my complaining about it most of the time I don't either

[5] .g. {{ppoem}} in Category:Experimental templates

[6] that was in 2012

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

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