fieldston american reader volume i – fall 2007 - Ethical Culture ...

Pagans and Pilgrims in the Promised LandWhat should we do but sing his PraiseThat led us through the watry MazeUnto an Isle so kong unknownAnd yet far kinder than our own?He lands us on a grassy Stage;Safe from the Storms, and Prelat’s rage.He gave us this eternal SpringWhich here enamells every thing;And sends the Fowls to us in care,On daily visits through the Air.He hangs in shades the Orange bright,Like golden lamps in a green Night.“The islands were so terrible to all that ever touched on them,and such tempests, thunders, and other fearefull objects areseene and heard about them, that they be called commonly, TheDevil’s Ilands, and are feared and avoyded of all sea travellersalive, above any other place in the world.. Yet it pleased ourmercifull God, to make even this hideous and hated place,both the place of our safetie, and meanes of our deliverance.”—William Strachey, 1609Andrew Marvell, “Bermudas”“We found shole water, where we smelt so sweet, and so stronga smell, as if we had been in the midst of some delicate gardenabounding with all kinds of odiferous flowers. ..The placewhere we put ashore was so full of grapes, as the very beatingand surge of the Sea overflowed them, of which we found suchplentie, as well there as in all places else, both on the sand andon the greene soile of the hills, that I think in all the world likeabundance is not to be found: and my selfe having seene thoseparts of Europe that most abound, find such difference as wereincredible to be written. ..Virginia is a land of plentie. The soilis the most plentifull, sweete, fruitfull, and wholesome of allthe world; the virgin forest is not at all like the barren andfruitless woods of Europe, but is full of the highest and reddestCedars of the world.”—Captain Arthur Barlowe, 1584“...Hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wildmen. There are only dangerous shoulds and roaring breakers.Neither could they, as it were, goe up to the tope of Pigsah,to vew from this wilderness a more goodly cuntrie to feedtheir hops; fore which way soever they tumd their eys (saveupward to the heavens) they could have litle solace or contentin respecte of any outward objects. For summer being done,all things stand upon them with a wetherbeaten face; and thewhole countrie, full of woods and thickets, represented a wildand savege hiew. If they looked behind them, ther was themighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a mainebarre and goulf to separate them from all the civill parts of theworld.”—William Bradford, 162015