O Pilgrims! Under ocean stars you sailed, breaking waves, singing starry hymns,
the Father he sustained you. Teaching children of your bloodline- blood of faith
And blood of soil. Now in your veins you carry- moonlit promise
In your chests and in your nostrils, deeply breathing,
Heaving, sighing, boatbeams creaking; hope expanding in the cold and murky waters.
O Pilgrims! Gospel-deep believers. Fickle, fearful, far from nowhere,
Stalwart in your undertaking. Braved the deep and strangeland shorelines;
Distant forests beckoned onward. Filled with prayer like matchlock muskets,
Filled with prayer like Red Sea waters; your parting and your journey
Stitched new hearts like sea glass smoothing.
O Wampanoag! From your forests you did listen. You saw a strange, outlandish people.
The labyrinth of the land you mastered- animals, its fruit, you had advantage
To show your strength, subdue and conquer, defend then vanquish-
But thought of harm fled your mind, escaped your forest. These odd
and restless wanderers: foreign-tongued, driven by winds of foreign matters.
O Wampanoag! Plagued with plagues and death in plenty, why did you care
For these weird and desperate people? A Sovereign Father, he did guide you,
To the shoreline- you fished it often. You saw the skin and sagging bones,
Sunken eyes and lack of knowledge. Saw the children, saw the women, gave yourselves
To this fretful project.
O Wampanoag! O Pilgrims! O Providence! 400 years now, we do gather,
With our children and our brethren. We toast your courage, we toast your fear,
We toast your faith and virtue; we toast your gains and your losses, we toast
Your courage and your weakness. O Blessed Father, give us strength in Your promise,
in Your freedom, joyflood fill us.
Let us recall Your bloodshed and the bloodshed, the bloodlines, the blood-filled,
the bloodless bodies, the bloodloss and the soil filled with promise.
