Mother, for these three hundred years or more

Neither our clippers nor our slavers reached

The haven of your peace in this Bay State:

Neither my father nor his father. Beached

On these dry flats of fishy real estate, O Mother, I implore

Your scorched, blue thunderbreasts of love to pour

Buckets of blessings on my burning head

Until I rise like Lazarus from the dead:

Lavabis nos et super nivem dealbabor.

‘On Copley Square, I saw you hold the door

To Trinity, the costly Church, and saw

The painted Paradise of harps and lutes

Sink like Atlantis in the Devil's jaw

And knock the Devil's teeth out by the roots;

But when I strike for shore

I find no painted idols to adore:

Hell is burned out, heaven's harp-strings are slack.

Mother, run to the chalice and bring back

Blood on your finger-tips for Lazarus who was poor.’