Scripture Verse

O God, our fathers have told us, what work Thou didst in their days, in the times of old. Psalm 44:1

Introduction

Words: Charles B. Bots­ford, 1888. Ap­peared in The Morn­ing Hour, by Irv­ing Em­er­son, O. B. Brown & George E. Gay (Bos­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts: Ginn, 1891), num­ber 88.

Music: Mis­sion­ary Chant Hein­rich C. Zeu­ner, 1832 (🔊 pdf nwc).

If you know where to get a good pic­ture of Bots­ford or Zeu­ner (head & shoul­ders, at least 200×300 pix­els),

Lyrics

Illustrious sires! Un­daunt­ed seers!
Their lives il­lume suc­ceed­ing years,
They heard the call di­vine and knew,
As Ab­ram did, the sum­mons true.

No part­ed floods en­tice their feet;
No pil­lared clouds their vi­sion greet;
In faith sub­lime they cross the sea,
For Christ’s dear sake and li­ber­ty.

This land they seek—theirs to sub­due;
In laws, re­li­gion, life make new;
They plant the Church, the state, the school,
Enthrone the people’s right to rule.

Departed he­roes! saint­ed, they
Behold the hom­age now we pay,
Rejoice the glo­ri­ous fruit to see
From free­dom’s Ply­mouth plant­ed tree.

The child­ren true, till lat­est sun,
Shall share the faith their fa­thers won;
To other lands their mes­sage bear,
And in the fi­nal tri­umph share.

Our God, the Pil­grims’ guide, we seek
To know Thy will; with­in us speak;
That word, a light, shall guid­ance give,
And in Thy pre­cepts we shall live.