Classic Poem

Of the Mayflower-Pilgrims those
That were spared by illness, foes,
Cold, privations, until Age
Turned and filled life's final page;
Sitting by the winter's fire
Blazing high, would never tire
Of recalling the past days
And the labyrinthine ways
Through which God had guided them
To their new Jerusalem.

Two or three old men would meet
In quaint Plymouth's crooked street,
One would say: " Dost thou remember
How, that Monday in November,
Sixty years ago, we landed
On the Cape? The pinnace stranded
Half a bowshot from the shore —
'Twas as level as a floor
And the water was like ice!
Yet the women in a trice
Took their stockings off and waded,
Reaching land all wet and jaded — "

" Yes, " another said, " we found
Running water on that ground,
And the women, though they froze,
Washed two months of " lothsome" clothes.
Everyone of them caught cold,
But the cleanliness consoled. "

" Ever since they've kept the Monday, "
Said a third; " it follows Sunday,
Just as cleanliness comes next
After godliness; the text
Of the proverb tells us that,
To the wise man verbum sat .
We're not Papists, but I say
We observe Saint Laundry's day. "