William Butler Yeats - Brown Penny

I WHISPERED, 'I am too young.'

And then, 'I am old enough';

Wherefore I threw a penny

To find out if I might love.

'Go and love, go and love, young man,

If the lady be young and fair.'

Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,

I am looped in the loops of her hair.

O love is the crooked thing,

There is nobody wise enough

To find out all that is in it,

For he would be thinking of love

Till the stars had run away

And the shadows eaten the moon.

Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,

One cannot begin it too soon.


William Butler Yeats, 1910



Biographical References

Biography -  by Poemhunter

Biography - by Wikipedia



Analyses of Poem


FIRST ANALYSIS

by DC Aries

http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/poetry-analysis-brown-penny-by-william-butler-yeats-2-11904/

 

William Butler Yeats was a writer of Irish and British descent. He was born in Ireland in 1865. He went on to become an accomplished poet and won the Nobel Prize for poetry. The poem, “Brown Penny“  was published in 1910 and appeared in a volume of poetry entitled, The Green Helmet and Other Poems. The theme of Brown Penny focused on romantic relationships and what it really means to fall in love. The poem opens with the lines,

 

I whispered, ‘I am too young,’

And then, ‘I am old enough’;

Wherefore I threw a penny

To find out if I might love.

 

Yeats writes about a young man who is questioning whether or not he is at an age where he can truly appreciate and experience love. He has conflicting feelings about it so he throws a penny in hopes of finding an answer. The remaining lines of the stanza include the answer.

 

‘Go and love, go and love, young man,

If the lady be young and fair.’

Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,

I am looped in the loops of her hair.

 

The answer the young may gets its that if she is the right woman, he will find love with her. The answer disregards age and explains that when its with the right person, anyone can love. The man then professes his love by stating, “I am looped in the loops of her hair.” 

 

In the second half of the poem Yeats writes,

 

O love is the crooked thing,

There is nobody wise enough

To find out all that is in it,

For he would be thinking of love

Till the stars had run away

And the shadows eaten the moon.

Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,

One cannot begin it too soon.

 

In this stanza, the man continues his conversation with the penny and comes to the realization that nobody can ever truly understand love or “all that is in it.” There is too much to explore and to know everything there is to know about love a man would have to think “Till the stars had run away/And the shadows eaten the moon.” Therefore, he concludes that no one is too young or too old to love because it takes more than a lifetime to understand.

 

A poetry element Yeats really works with in this poem is diction. His word choice is creative and unique. This is a conflict within himself, but he uses “brown penny,” as someone to converse with.  The choice of using a penny is appropriate. By flipping the penny, he is taking a chance. There is also a fair amount of repetition. “brown penny” is repeated over and over and adds to the flow of the poem. “Go and love,” is also repeated several times, to show that it is an important line. “Looped in the loops of her hair,” is a great line that uses the word “loop” as two different meanings. Looped means entangled in this woman and also describes strands of her hair. Loop can also refer to the uncertainty in love. This is another way of expressing his affection for the woman. He shows more creativity in the second stanza with the lines, “Till the stars had run away/And the shadows eaten the moon.” This is an unusual phrase that most readers won’t have heard before, but still, in the context of the poem, the readers will understand what Yeats is saying.

 

The major symbol in this poem is the “brown penny.” To find out whether or not he is in love, the man  flips a penny. He takes a chance. This is what love is all about. Individuals take a chance when they commit or fall in love with someone. They don’t know how its going to end and they risk their heart and their lives for the sake of love. As with flipping a penny, the young man doesn’t know how it will land or what the future holds. But he risks it for love.

 

“Brown Penny” was an unique, yet honest poem by Yeats. Unlike many love poems throughout history, it wasn’t boring or generic. It used the right amount of diction, repetition and symbolism to capture the meaning. Yeats showed the emotion of young love in an effective way. “Brown Penny” was an incredible poem by a talented man.

 

 

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SECOND ANALYSIS

by Raina Lorring

http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/poetry-analysis-brown-penny-by-william-butler-yeats-11802/

 

Poetry is meant to be heard. Readers can not get the full effect of many works if they simple read the piece to themselves. This is why many poetry lovers find it helpful to read the works out loud and poetry readings are still popular. The poem “Brown Penny” by William Butler Yeats is meant to heard and read. The poet was born in Dublin in 1865. He stood out among other poets of his period, who used a free verse style,  because he wrote lyrical poetry. “Brown Penny” is more of a love song than a poem.

 

The “penny” is an important symbol in the poem. In the culture in which Yeats grew up, the “penny” is a symbol for love for commoners. The reason for this is because love is something that is priceless. A common tradition of the period was to have a “Penny Wedding”, where guest were expected to bring their own food.

 

Yeats also uses the “penny” to show that he is taking a chance on love. This is apparent since a “penny” is currency and invokes the image of gambling. This can be seen in the line, “Wherefore I threw a penny.” This line can also be symbol for wishing for love because the act of trowing a “penny” down a well has been a long standing tradition of making a wish.

 

The style of the poem is almost a whirling dance with words. Yeats skillfully wrote a poem that comes to life when the audience hears the piece as it was meant to be heard, in song. The speaker in the poem is “looped” in his lovers hair. This word gives the image of the dance and also shows how the speaker is bound to his lover.

 

Yeats shows how much lovers can clash with the lines: “O love is the crooked thing, / There is nobody wise enough / To find out all that is in it.” Love is a struggle of give and take.

 

“Brown Penny” also shows how as difficult love can be, it is not something that can ever be escaped. Yeats says that the speaker “would be thinking of love / Till the stars had run away / And the shadows eaten the moon.” These lines mean that love is not only a struggle but an eternal one.

 

Love is a dance and poem is meant to be heard. The skillful words of “Brown Penny” need a voice to give them life. Yeats understood this and captures the conflicting emotions of love in his poem “Brown Penny.”

 

 

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THIRD ANALYSIS

by Milton Johanides

http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/what-is-the-meaning-of-yeats-poem-brown-penny-8884/

 

Brown Penny by W B Yeats is a short poem written in 1910 and deals in a lighthearted way with the serious business of a young man considering falling in love. The young man, perhaps Yeats himself, tosses a coin, the brown penny, to see if he is old enough to love. In an age wrought with superstitions such an action may not have sounded as amusing as it does today. Victorian Britain was a society which took seriously the behavior of ordinary objects, hence all the wedding traditions we are still familiar with, such as dressing in white, wearing a veil, having something borrowed, something blue, etc. The Victorians even had a theory about the type of marriage a couple would enjoy depending on the colour of the bride´s dress, the day of the wedding and even the state of the weather. So Yeats is, perhaps tongue in cheek, borrowing from this culture to determine his own fate.

 

The coin encourages him to “go and love” especially if the lady “be young and fair.” The last line of the first verse “looped in the loops of the hair” suggests the looping of the coin as it travels through the air as well as drawing on an image favoured by Yeats of being draped in the hair of his loved one, as in “He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace” (line 10: and your hair fall over my breast).

 

In contrast to the lightheartedness of the first verse, the second introduces a feeling of frustration at the immense power of love and its ability to deceive. “Love is the crooked thing” he says, in other words something that twists and turns, not in lovely loops like a girl´s long hair, but in an unpredictable way that can confuse. “Crooked” of course also implies dishonesty, even illegal activity, so love is very much on the wrong side of the tracks in this verse. Yeats has made it an enemy, testing his wisdom.  “There is nobody wise enough to find all that is in it,” is a despairing line, commenting on the immensity of the task facing a young man encountering romance for the first time. Today, love is perhaps a more transient thing, experienced easily and quickly abandoned if it fails, but in Yeats´ time, when propriety mattered and behaviour was governed by religious beliefs, individuals had to think very carefully before entering a relationship, taking into careful consideration not only the possible uncomfortable results of difficult romance, but also what other people thought. Falling in love promised a minefield of adverse social consequences.

 

But it is not the social environment that concerns Yeats here, it is the enigmatic quality of love that baffles him. The world would end, he says, before anyone, no matter how wise, could understand it. Using the stars and the moon in this context is deliberately invoking the imagery of the romantic poets of an earlier century, but giving it a more morbid twist.

 

Still, far from putting off the young man, the size of the task before him only encourages him further. “One cannot begin it too soon” brings the poem back to its lighthearted beginning and leaves the reader with a wry smile. This is the fate of all mankind, that no matter how insurmountable the odds of finding true love are, we each of us attempt it, time and time again. Given the unfathomable nature of the exercise, tossing a brown penny has as much chance of bringing us success as anything else.


 

Robert Louis Stevenson - Requiem

Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894

Robert with his mother at a young age

Robert as a young author at the age of 26

Under the wide and starry sky

Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse ye grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be,

  Home is the sailor, home from the sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

Robert Louis Stevenson (c.1850-1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, and essayist, best known for his adventure stories like Treasure Island. Stevenson was a sickly man (he died of tuberculosis) who nevertheless led an adventurous life. He spent his last five years on the island of Samoa as a planter and chief of the natives.

At the time of penning his own epitaph, Requiem (1879) Stevenson was ill, distraught and close to death. Recovering, he lived another 15 years before passing away in his beloved Samoa. And it is this same poem that can now be found engraved upon his tombstone.

Robert Louis Stevenson - Autumn Fires

Autumn Fires

 by Robert Louis Stevenson

(1850-1894)

In the other gardens

And all up the vale,

From the autumn bonfires

See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over

And all the summer flowers,

The red fire blazes,

The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!

Something bright in all!

Flowers in the summer,

Fires in the fall!

Ogden Nash - Winter Morning Poems

Winter is the king of showmen
Turning tree stumps into snow men
And houses into birthday cakes
And spreading sugar over lakes

Smooth and clean and frosty white
The world looks good enough to bite
That's the season to be young
Catching snowflakes on your tongue
Snow is snowy when it's snowing
I'm sorry it's slushy when it's going

*

I like to walk on fresh fallen snow
The kind that whispers and speaks.
It sings a song as I walk along
With crackles and scrunches and squeaks.

*

Jackets and sweaters, Stockings and boots
Snug hats and mittens, Warm woolen suits

All bundled up and ready to go
Out of the house to play in the snow

Although I feel clumsy in all of these clothes
I am so happy whenever it snows!

*

Snowmen fall from Heaven,
Some assembly required.

*

Where did you get that little red nose?
Jack Frost touched it, I suppose.
He touched it once, he touched it twice.
Poor little nose, it's as cold as ice.

Ogden Nash

Harry Edward Mills - The Early Frogs

O, I love to hear the frogs
    When they first begin to sing;
How they vocalize the bogs,
    And vociferate the Spring.
How they carrol as they croak,
How they mingle jest and joke
With their solemn chant and dirge
    On the river's slimy verge.
 
O, I love to hear the frogs,
    For their monotone uncouth
Is the music of the cogs
    Of the mill wheel of my youth.
And I listen half asleep,
And the eyes of mem'ry peep
Through the bars that hold me fast,
    From the pleasures of the past.
 
O, I love to hear the frogs,
    For their melody is health
To the heart that worry flogs
    With the lash of want or wealth.
And the cares of life take wing,
    And its pleasures lose their sting,
And love's channel way unclogs
    In the croaking of the frogs.


Harry Edward Mills, 1901

Ralph Waldo Emerson - The Snowstorm

The Snowstorm

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the famer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson , 1835 [1841]

John Greenleaf Whittier was inspired by this poem

to write his poem “Snow-bound.”

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Biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/201

American poet, essayist, and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in 1803 in Boston, Massachusetts. After studying at Harvard and teaching for a brief time, Emerson entered the ministry. He was appointed to the Old Second Church in his native city, but soon became an unwilling preacher. Unable in conscience to administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper after the death of his nineteen-year-old wife of tuberculosis, Emerson resigned his pastorate in 1831.

The following year, he sailed for Europe, visiting Thomas Carlyle and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Carlyle, the Scottish-born English writer, was famous for his explosive attacks on hypocrisy and materialism, his distrust of democracy, and his highly romantic belief in the power of the individual. Emerson's friendship with Carlyle was both lasting and significant; the insights of the British thinker helped Emerson formulate his own philosophy.

On his return to New England, Emerson became known for challenging traditional thought. In 1835, he married his second wife, Lydia Jackson, and settled in Concord, Massachusetts. Known in the local literary circle as "The Sage of Concord," Emerson became the chief spokesman for Transcendentalism, the American philosophic and literary movement. Centered in New England during the 19th century, Transcendentalism was a reaction against scientific rationalism.

Emerson's first book, Nature (1836), is perhaps the best expression of his Transcendentalism, the belief that everything in our world—even a drop of dew—is a microcosm of the universe. His concept of the Over-Soul—a Supreme Mind that every man and woman share—allowed Transcendentalists to disregard external authority and to rely instead on direct experience. "Trust thyself," Emerson's motto, became the code of Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, and W. E. Channing. From 1842 to 1844, Emerson edited the Transcendentalist journal, The Dial.

Emerson wrote a poetic prose, ordering his essays by recurring themes and images. His poetry, on the other hand, is often called harsh and didactic. Among Emerson's most well known works are Essays, First and Second Series (1841, 1844). The First Series includes Emerson's famous essay, "Self-Reliance," in which the writer instructs his listener to examine his relationship with Nature and God, and to trust his own judgment above all others.

Emerson's other volumes include Poems (1847), Representative Men, The Conduct of Life (1860), and English Traits (1865). His best-known addresses are The American Scholar (1837) and The Divinity School Address, which he delivered before the graduates of the Harvard Divinity School, shocking Boston's conservative clergymen with his descriptions of the divinity of man and the humanity of Jesus.

Emerson's philosophy is characterized by its reliance on intuition as the only way to comprehend reality, and his concepts owe much to the works of Plotinus, Swedenborg, and Böhme. A believer in the "divine sufficiency of the individual," Emerson was a steady optimist. His refusal to grant the existence of evil caused Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry James, Sr., among others, to doubt his judgment. In spite of their skepticism, Emerson's beliefs are of central importance in the history of American culture.

Ralph Waldo Emerson died of pneumonia in 1882.

A Selected Bibliography

Prose

Essays: First Series (1841)

Essays: Second Series (1844)
Addresses, and Lectures (1849)
Representative Men (1850)
The Conduct of Life (1860)
English Traits (1865)
Society and Solitude (1870)

High Flight, John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up, the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor even eagle flew.
And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space...
...put out my hand, and touched the face of God.


John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (1922-1941)
August 18, 1941

Felicia Dorethea Hemans - The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers

The Landing of the Pilgrims, December 1620

THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS


The breaking waves dashed high

On a stern and rock-bound coast,

And the woods against a stormy sky

Their giant branches tossed;

And the heavy night hung dark,

The hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moored their bark

On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,

They, the true-hearted came;

Not with the roll of the stirring drums,

And the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come,

In silence and in fear;

They shook the depths of the desert gloom

With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard, and the sea;

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang

To the anthem of the free.

The ocean eagle soared

From his nest by the white wave's foam;

And the rocking pines of the forest roared -

This was their welcome home.

There were men with hoary hair

Amidst the pilgrim band:

Why had they come to wither there,

Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,

Lit by her deep love's truth;

There was manhood's brow, serenely high,

And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?

Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?

They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod;

They have left unstained what there they found -

Freedom to worship God.


by Felicia Dorethea Hemans (c.1793-1835)

"Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers" is reprinted from Historic Poems and Ballads.
Ed. Rupert S. Holland. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1912.

* * * * * * * *

THE MAYFLOWER AND PILGRIMS

http://www.mayflower-de.org/MF_PilgrimHistory.html

The Pilgrims

The pilgrims were a group of English protestant “Separatists” who first sought freedom from religious persecution by the Church of England by moving to Leiden, Holland, and about ten years later by relocating to North America where they hoped to establish a colony in Northern Virginia. They were joined on their journey across the Atlantic by other English families and individuals, not Separatists, many of whom had skills and trades needed by the pilgrims to establish a colony, and who were themselves simply seeking the opportunity for a better life.

The Voyage

The Pilgrims engaged two aging sailing vessels, the Mayflower and the Speedwell to transport them with their supplies to Northern Virginia, where they had obtained a charter from the English king. The group left Southampton England in August 1620, but were forced to return to port after the Speedwell proved to be unseaworthy. One hundred and two passengers then crowded aboard the Mayflower in September 1620 and set out again, having to leave a number of their fellow pilgrims and vital supplies in England. The crossing was slower than expected and the Mayflower was driven off course and arrived far north of their Northern Virginia destination in November 1620, at the start of a harsh winter. The pilgrims decided that further travel to Northern Virgina at that time of year was dangerous and unwise, and began exploring Cape Cod seeking a safe harbor and suitable place to establish their colony.

The Mayflower Compact

Before leaving the Mayflower, the pilgrims and the other voyagers, drafted and all signed a document that established the legal and political structure of the new colony. That historic document is considered to be the first to set forth the democratic self governance principles on which the the United States Constitution was based a century and a half later, and is known as the Mayflower Compact:

Agreement Between the Settlers at New Plymouth : 1620 IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620. Mr. John Carver Mr. William Bradford Mr Edward Winslow Mr. William Brewster Isaac Allerton Myles Standish John Alden John Turner Francis Eaton James Chilton John Craxton John Billington Moses Fletcher John Goodman Mr. Samuel Fuller Mr. Christopher Martin Mr. William Mullins Mr. William White Mr. Richard Warren John Howland Mr. Steven Hopkins Digery Priest Thomas Williams Gilbert Winslow Edmund Margesson Peter Brown Richard Britteridge George Soule Edward Tilly John Tilly Francis Cooke Thomas Rogers Thomas Tinker John Ridgdale Edward Fuller Richard Clark Richard Gardiner Mr. John Allerton Thomas English Edward Doten Edward Liester

Plymouth Colony

The pilgrims selected a site on the western shore of Cape Cod in Massachusetts which they named Plymouth and where they established their colony. During that first winter, 46 of the 102 colonists died from the severe cold plus an influenza type of illness known as the “great sickness”, and left the remaining colonists weakened and without adequate food and supplies. During the spring of 1621, however, members of the peaceful native Wampanoags tribe, helped the colonists to adapt and grow enough food to survive. Although the colonists struggled and endured hardships for the first few years at Plymouth, they prevailed and established the first permanent colony in New England.

The First Thanksgiving

At the time of the fall harvest in 1621, Massasoit, the great sachem of the Wampanoag tribe and 90 of his people arrived with meat, fowl, fish and crops and helped the pilgrims prepare for the upcoming winter. The pilgrims and the Wampanoags joined together for a great three day harvest feast and a time of thanksgiving for the blessings bestowed on them. Almost two and a half centuries later in 1863, during the American Civil War, President Lincoln, who was urged to follow the tradition of the pilgrims' first thanksgiving, proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving. This tradition was followed by every succeeding president, until Congress in 1941 established Thanksgiving as an official national holiday.

Plymouth Rock, Plymouth, Massachusetts

The Pilgrims

T h e   P i l g r i  m s

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/revolutionary-war/pilgrims/pilgrims.htm

During the middle of the sixteenth century the social condition of the people of England was very primitive, and life was hard. Poor people lived in cottages built of wooden frames filled in with dirt; their houses were without wooden floors; and in many of them the fireplaces were constructed in the middle of the rooms with no chimneys, a hole being left in the roof for the smoke to escape. The windows were not glazed, and were closed against the weather, and the light was allowed to enter by means of oiled paper. Such was the plain condition of the houses of the Puritans of New England.

Very few vegetables were cultivated, as gardening had not yet become popular. The common material for bread was flour of oats, rye, and barley; and sometimes, when these were scarce, they were mixed with ground acorns. Even this black bread was sometimes not available, and meat was the principal diet. Their forks and ploughs were made of wood, and these, with a hoe and spade, constituted the bulk of their agricultural implements. Their spoons and platters were made chiefly of wood, and forks were unknown. It is said that glazed windows were so scarce, and regarded as so much of a luxury, that noblemen, when they left their country-houses to go to court, had their glazed windows packed away carefully with other precious furniture.

The non-conformist English refugees in Holland under the pastorate of Rev. Mr. Robinson, yearning for a secluded asylum from persecution under the English government, proposed to go to Virginia and settle there in a distinct body under the general government of that colony. They sent Robert Cushman and John Carver to England in 1617 to treat with the London Company, and to ascertain whether the King would grant them liberty of conscience in that distant country. The company were anxious to have these people settle in Virginia, and offered them ample privileges, but the King would not promise not to molest them. These agents returned to Leyden. The discouraged refugees sent other agents to England in February, 1619, and finally made an arrangement with the company and with London merchants and others for their settlement in Virginia, and they at once prepared for the memorable voyage on the Mayflower in 1620. Several of the congregation at Leyden sold their estates and made a common bank, which, with the aid of their London partners, enabled them to purchase the Speedwell, a ship of 60 tons, and to hire in England the Mayflower, a ship of 180 tons, for the intended voyage. They left Delft Haven for England in the Speedwell (July, 1620), and in August sailed from Southampton, but, on account of the leakiness of the ship, were twice compelled to return to port. Dismissing this unseaworthy vessel, 101 of the number who came from Leyden sailed on the Mayflower on September 6.

Delft Haven

The following are the names of the forty-one persons who signed the constitution of government on board the Mayflower, and are known as the Pilgrim Fathers: John Carver, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, William Brewster, Isaac Allerton, Myles Standish, John Alden, Samuel Fuller, Christopher Martin, William Mullins, William 'White, Richard Warren, John Howland, Stephen Hopkins, Edward Tilley, John Tilley, Francis Cook, Thomas Rogers, Thomas Tinker, John Ridgedale, Edward Fuller, John Turner, Francis Eaton, James Chilton, John Crackston, John Billington, Moses Fletcher, John Goodman, Degory Priest, Thomas Williams, Gilbert Winslow, Edward Margeson, Peter Brown, Richard Britteridge, George Soule, Richard Clarke, Richard Gardiner, John Allerton, Thomas English, Edward Doty, Edward Lister. Each subscriber placed opposite his name the number of his family.

Pilgrim's Signing the Mayflower Compact

The following is the text of the agreement which was signed on the lid of Elder Brewster's chest (see BREWSTER, WILLIAM).

"In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are hereunto written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc., having undertaken for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitution, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names, at Cape Cod, the 11th of November [0. S.], in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini 1620."

The Mayflower first anchored in Cape Cod Bay, just within the cape, on November 21, in what is now the harbor of Provincetown, the only windward port for many a league where the vessel could have safely stayed. Nearly all the company went ashore, glad to touch land after the long voyage. They first fell on their knees, and thanked God for the preservation of their lives. The waters were shallow, and they had waded ashore—the men to explore the country, the women to wash their clothes after the long voyage.

The spot chosen by a party of explorers for the permanent landing-place of the passengers on the Mayflower was selected about Dec. 20, 1620, where New Plymouth was built. From about the middle of December until the 25th the weather was stormy, and the bulk of the passengers remained on the ship, while some of the men built a rude shelter to receive them. On the 25th a greater portion of the passengers went on shore to visit the spot chosen for their residence, when, tradition says, Mary Chilton and John Alden, both young persons, first sprang upon Plymouth Rock from the boat that conveyed them.

Most of the women and children remained on board the Mayflower until suitable log huts were erected for their reception, and it was March 21, 1621, before they were all landed. Those on shore were exposed to the rigors of winter weather and insufficient food, though the winter was a comparatively mild one. Those on the ship were confined in foul air, with unwholesome food. Scurvy and other diseases appeared among them, and when, late in March, the last passenger landed from the Mayflower, nearly one-half the colonists were dead.

The lands of the Plymouth Colony were held in common by the "Pilgrims" and their partners, the London merchants. In 1627 the "Pilgrims" sent Isaac Allerton to England to negotiate for the purchase of the shares of the London adventurers, with their stock, merchandise, lands, and chattels. He did so for $9,000, payable in nine years in equal annual installments. Some of the principal persons of the colony became bound for the rest, and a partnership was formed, into which was admitted the head of every family, and every young man of age and prudence. It was agreed that every single free-man should have one share; and every father of a family have leave to purchase one share for himself, one for his wife, and one for every child living with him; that every one should pay his part of the public debt according to the number of his shares. To every share twenty acres of arable land were assigned by lot; to every six shares, one cow and two goats, and swine in the same proportion. This agreement was made in full court, Jan. 3, 1628. The joint-stock or community system was then abandoned, a division of the movable property was made, and twenty acres of land nearest to the town were assigned in fee to each colonist. (See PLYMOUTH, NEW.)

Pilgrims Landing in the New World

Gov. WILLIAM BRADFORD wrote a History of the Plymouth Plantation, of which the following is an extract: This was written in a form of old English, so spelling and sentence structure may appear awkward today.

The Pilgrims' Arrival at Cape Cod.—Being thus arived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees & blessed ye God of heaven, who had brought them over ye vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all ye periles & miseries thereof, againe to set their feete on ye firme and stable earth, their proper elemente. And no marvell if they were thus joyefull, seeing wise Seneca was so affected with sailing a few miles on ye coast of his owne Italy; as he affirmed, that he had rather remaine twentie years on his way by land, then pass by sea to any place in a short time; so tedious & dreadful was ye same unto him.

But hear I cannot but stay and make a pause, and stand half amased at this poore peoples presente condition; and so I thinke will the reader too, when he well considers ye same. Being thus passed ye vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before in their preparation (as may be remembered by yt which wente before), they had now no friends to wellcome them, nor inns to entertaine or refresh their weather-beaten bodys, no houses or much less townes to repaire too, to seeke for suecoure. It is recorded in scripture as a mercie to ye apostle & his shipwraked company, yt the barbarians shewed them no smale kindnes in refreshing them, but these savage barbarians, when they mette with them (as after will appeare) were readier to fill their sids full of arrows then otherwise. And for ye season it was winter, and they that know ye winters of yt cuntrie know them to be sharp & violent, & subjecte to cruell & feirce stormes, deangerous to travill to known places, much more to serch an unknown coast. Besids, what could they see but a hidious & desolate wildernes, full of wild beasts & willd men ? and what multituds ti r might be of them they knew not. Nether could they, as it were, goe up to ye tope of Pisgah, to vew from this willdernes a more goodly cuntrie to feed their hops; for which way soever they turned their eys (save upward to ye heavens) they could have litle solace or content in respecte of any outward objects. For sumer being done, all things stand upon them with a weatherbeaten face; and ye whole countrie, full of woods & thickets, represented a wild & savage heiw. If they looked behind them; ther was ye mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a maine barr & goulfe to seperate themfrom all ye civill parts of ye world. If it be said they had a ship to sucour them, it is trew; but what heard they daly from ye mr. & company? but yt with speede they should looke out a place with their shallop, wher they would be at some near distance; for ye season was shuck as he would not stirr from thence till a safe harbor was discovered by them wher they would be, and he might goe without danger; and that victells consumed apace, but he must & would keepe sufficient for them selves & their returne. Yea, it was muttered by some, that if they gott not a place in time, they would turne them & their goods ashore & leave them. Let it also be considered what weake hopes of supply & succoure they left behinde them, yt might bear up their minds in this sade condition and trialls they were under ; and they could not but be very smale. It is true, indeed, ye affections & love of their brethren at Leyden was cordiall & entire towards them, but they had litle power to help them, or them selves; and how ye case stode betweene them & ye marchants at their coming away, bath allready been declared. What could now sustaine them but ye spirite of God & his grace? May not & ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: Our faithers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this w-illdernes; but they cried unto ye Lord, and he heard their voyce, and looked on their adversitie, &c. Let them therefore praise ye Lord, because he is good, & his mercies endure for ever. Yea, let them which have been redeemed of ye Lord, spew how he hath delivered them from ye hand of ye oppressour. When they 'wandered in ye deserte wilddernes out of ye way, and found no citie to dwell in, both hungrie. & thirstie, their sowle was overwhelmed in them. Let them confess before ye Lord his loving kindnes, and his wonderful works before ye sons of men.

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For More Information on the

Pilgrim's Mayflower Compact, c.1620

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/11/pilgrims-mission-to-advance-christian.html

For More Information on the

Discovery and Settlement of America


http://www.sonofthesouth.net/revolutionary-war/explorers/discovering-america-columbus.htm