A band of exiles moored their bark
On a wild New England shore.

These opening lines are from Felicia Hemans’s poem “The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England,” written in the early 19th century amid strong British Romantic interest in heroic national origins and moral exemplars. Hemans, one of the most widely read poets of her day, often treated themes of exile, faith, sacrifice, and the founding of communities. Here she evokes the arrival of the English Separatists (later called the Pilgrims) on the New England coast in 1620, framing their landing as a moment of hardship and providential purpose. The poem helped popularize a solemn, idealized image of the Pilgrims in Anglophone culture.

The couplet compresses an entire founding myth into a stark tableau: displaced people (“exiles”) securing a fragile vessel (“bark”) against an untamed coast. The diction emphasizes vulnerability and estrangement—these are not triumphant conquerors but refugees arriving at the edge of the known world. “Wild New England shore” casts the landscape as formidable and morally testing, setting up a narrative in which endurance and religious conviction are proved through exposure to nature’s severity. Hemans’s framing invites readers to see the settlement as an act of collective resolve and spiritual mission, turning historical migration into a symbolic beginning for a community defined by sacrifice and aspiration.