By Hezekiah Butterworth
"Praise ye the Lord!" The psalm to-day
Still rises on our ears,
Borne from the hills of Boston Bay
Through five times fifty years,
When Winthrop's fleet from Yarmouth crept
Out to the open main,
And through the widening waters swept,
In April sun and rain.
"Pray to the Lord with fervent lips,"
The leader shouted, "pray;"
And prayer arose from all the ships
As faded Yarmouth Bay.
They passed the Scilly Isles that day,
And May-days came, and June,
And thrice upon the ocean lay
The full orb of the moon.
And as that day, on Yarmouth Bay,
Ere England sunk from view,
While yet the rippling Solent lay
In April skies of blue,
"Pray to the Lord with fervent lips,"
Each morn was shouted, "pray;"
And prayer arose from all the ships,
As first in Yarmouth Bay;
Blew warm the breeze o'er Western seas,
Through Maytime morns, and June,
Till hailed these souls the Isles of Shoals,
Low 'neath the summer moon;
And as Cape Ann arose to view,
And Norman's Woe they passed,
The wood-doves came the white mists through,
And circled round each mast.
"Pray to the Lord with fervent lips,"
Then called the leader, "pray;"
And prayer arose from all the ships,
As first in Yarmouth Bay.
Above the sea the hill-tops fair—
God's towers—began to rise,
And odors rare breathe through the air,
Like balms of Paradise.
Through burning skies the ospreys flew,
And near the pine-cooled shores
Danced airy boat and thin canoe,
To flash of sunlit oars.
"Pray to the Lord with fervent lips,"
The leader shouted, "pray!"
Then prayer arose, and all the ships
Sailed into Boston Bay.
The white wings folded, anchors down,
The sea-worn fleet in line,
Fair rose the hills where Boston town
Should rise from clouds of pine;
Fair was the harbor, summit-walled,
And placid lay the sea.
"Praise ye the Lord," the leader called;
"Praise ye the Lord," spake he.
"Give thanks to God with fervent lips,
Give thanks to God to-day,"
The anthem rose from all the ships,
Safe moored in Boston Bay.
"Praise ye the Lord!" Primeval woods
First heard the ancient song,
And summer hills and solitudes
The echoes rolled along.
The Red Cross flag of England blew
Above the fleet that day,
While Shawmut's triple peaks in view
In amber hazes lay.
"Praise ye the Lord with fervent lips,
Praise ye the Lord to-day,"
The anthem rose from all the ships
Safe moored in Boston Bay.
The Arabella leads the song—
The Mayflower sings below,
That erst the Pilgrims bore along
The Plymouth reefs of snow.
Oh! never be that psalm forgot
That rose o'er Boston Bay,
When Winthrop sang, and Endicott,
And Saltonstall, that day:
"Praise ye the Lord with fervent lips,
Praise ye the Lord to-day;"
And praise arose from all the ships,
Like prayers in Yarmouth Bay.
That psalm our fathers sang we sing,
That psalm of peace and wars,
While o'er our heads unfolds its wing
The flag of forty stars.
And while the nation finds a tongue
For nobler gifts to pray,
'T will ever sing the song they sung
That first Thanksgiving Day:
"Praise ye the Lord with fervent lips,
Praise ye the Lord to-day;"
So rose the song from all the ships,
Safe moored in Boston Bay.
Our fathers' prayers have changed to psalms,
As David's treasures old
Turned, on the Temple's giant arms,
To lily-work of gold.
Ho! vanished ships from Yarmouth's tide,
Ho! ships of Boston Bay,
Your prayers have crossed the centuries wide
To this Thanksgiving Day!
We pray to God with fervent lips,
We praise the Lord to-day,
As prayers arose from Yarmouth ships,
But psalms from Boston Bay.
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I spent most of the day before Thanksgiving with Gblvr, though my kids were home the whole time she was here -- they had half a day of school and it sounds like they did very little work during the hours they were there. While Adam went out with his friends (originally for ice cream, though one of them fell off his bike so they ended up at someone's house instead), Gblvr and I got CalTort and watched a bunch of this season's Merlin episodes ("The Crystal Cave" through "The Eye of the Phoenix") and made jewelry (or in my case mostly reclaimed old jewelry; I took out a bunch of earrings I never wear and keep thinking about giving away because I didn't like their hooks, beads, etc. and put them together in new combinations). We got on the subject of Star Trek's "The Man Trap" and then we decided we needed to watch that, too, and while the disc was in the DVD player, we also watched "The Naked Time," because who can resist Spock in tears?
My mother got me the goddesses on these earrings when I was in college, I think -- they were on kidney wires, which I hate. I decided they would look much better with some color and on French hooks.
In general I never wear earrings that I have to fight with to put on. This very pretty glass from Art of Fire came on a wire hoop with tiny fastening hole, and I was always stabbing my earlobe and my thumb trying to close it in the back. Gblvr redesigned the earrings for me -- aren't they pretty?
I had the same problem with these cat earrings, which I've owned since before I had children. Gblvr looped off the end of the hoop and put them on French hooks for me so now I can wear them!
The big crystals were on horrible kidney wires that were tarnished and hung at a weird length that made them get lost in my hair. I put some Swarovski crystals on a new wire and changed the hooks.
Dementordelta bought a package of these bats once when we were making necklaces and I kept two of them. Gblvr made the earrings.
This started out as two sets of earrings: the doves on kidney wires and the peace signs on tiny studs. They both looked too small and colorless, so I wanted to put them on together. Gblvr helped me with the jump rings.
I bought the moons just because I thought they were pretty; Gblvr had the blue beads.
I really love these silver Art Deco style earrings, but they have a bit of greenish tarnish that I haven't been able to remove with anything I've tried (polishes, dips, etc.) in the decade I've owned them, so I decided to go with the color scheme!
I posted my review of "Genesis", which it's likely few people will read since it's the day before Thanksgiving, but that's all that episode deserves. My family watched Merlin's "Love in the Time of Dragons" after dinner, since we're still behind; we also watched the Futurama holiday special, which was cute but not their best ("Jurassic Bark" was on before it, which is really moving). It would have been a really good day except that my computer was acting up, and when I checked the task manager, I discovered that it was running something called atieclxx.exe which apparently can be a virus masquerading as some AMD component -- after two different virus scans, a malware scan, and a spybot scan, all repeated with the computer booted in safe mode yet finding nothing, I used msconfig to find and disable the process, but I still can't find the freaking file to delete it altogether. Please send advice if you have it, preferably not "wipe your hard drive"!
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving if you celebrate! If not, have a wonderful Thursday.
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