The Indian's Welcome to the Pilgrim Fathers

Above them spread a stranger sky;
Around, the sterile plain;
The rock-bound coast rose frowning nigh;
Beyond, -- the wrathful main:
Chill remnants of a wintry snow
Still chok'd the encumbered soil,
Yet forth those Pilgrim Fathers go
To mark their future toil.


The Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts, December 22nd 1620 by Currier & Ives
'Mid yonder vale their corn must rise
In Summer's ripening pride,
And there the church-spire woo the skies
Its sister-school beside.
Perchance 'mid England's velvet greet
Some tender thought repos'd
Though nought upon their stoic mien
Such soft regret disclos'd

Abandoned School House in the Palouse, Washington, USA
When sudden from the forest wide
A red-browed chieftain came,
With towering form, and haughty stride,
And eye like kindling flame:
No wrath he breath'd, no conflict sought,
To no dark ambush drew,
But simply to the Old World brought
The welcome of the New.

Eyes of the Blackfoot

That welcome was a blast and ban
Upon thy race unborn.
Was there no seer, thou fated Man!
Thy lavish Zeal to warn?
Thou in thy fearless faith didst hail
A weak, invading band,
But who shall heed thy children's wail
Swept from their native land?

Thou gav'st the riches of thy streams,
The lordship o'er thy waves,
The region of thine infant dreams
And of thy fathers' graves,
But who to you proud mansions piled
With wealth of earth and sea,
Poor outcast from thy forest wild,
Say, who shall welcome thee?


Valley View of El Capitan, Cathedral Rock, Merced River in Yosemite National Park, California, USA

Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1835)

Lydia Huntley Sigourney 1791-1865) As the first and most popular woman poet of the early nineteenth century, Lydia Huntley Sigourney had, in her time, the single greatest influence on the craft of women poets and their image as artists. Sigourney was born Sept. 1, 1791 in Norwich, Connecticut. Although the daughter of a poor gardener--she knew genteel poverty as did many early nineteenth-century women poets--Sigourney received an education and introduction to poetry from the wife of her father's employer. Developing an early interest in history, she offered a traditional male curriculum at a Hartford women's school that she began in 1814 and ran for four years. Her first book, Moral Pieces, in Prose and Verse (1815), came out under her name; thereafter, she published anonymously at her husband's insistence until his banking and hardware business declined. Taking over the family finances, Sigourney began publishing in her own name again in 1833. Her 1834 Poems, cited by Emily Stipes Watts as her best collection, had many reprintings. While Sigourney fulfilled the stereotype of the profuse, amateurish woman writer, she also earned the stature of a serious artist. In 1849, her Illustrated Poems appeared in a series that included Longfellow and Bryant. Writing for a half century, Sigourney produced fifty-six volumes of poetry and prose and some two thousand articles that made her ubiquitous in the magazines of the day. She died on June 10, 1865 in Hartford, Connecticut, one of the most well-known writers in America.

images courtesy of All Posters

(P.S. this was originally posted last November...and I just re-cycled it!!!)

I WISH FOR YOU ALL A VERY BLESSED AND PEACEFUL THANKSGIVING WITH YOUR FAMILIES!!!
MIMI