CANTO EIGHTH.
[Scene. The New Home in Seekonk’s Mead.]
Through Seekonk’s groves the morning sun once more
Flames in his glory. Waving verdant gold,
The boundless forest stands. Wild songsters pour,
From every dewy glade and tufted wold,
The melody of joy. From shore to shore
The tranquil waters dream, and soul-like hold
A mirrored world below of softest hue,
With underhanging vault of cloudless blue.
II.
And Williams issued from his humble cot,
Not as of late in solitary mood,
With cheerless heart and ill-foreboding thought,
But with light step and breast of quietude;
And by him came the partner of his lot,
And their young children, with blithe interlude
Of prattling speech, softening the graver talk
Of the fond parents in their morning walk.
III.
In sooth his buoyant spirits seemed to spread
O’er all about him their enlivening flush;
Ne’er was the grass so verdant on the glade,
Ne’er did the fountain sparkle with such gush;
Ne’er had the stream such lovely music made,
Ne’er sang so blithe the robin on the bush;
The woodland flowers far brighter hues displayed,
More sunny was the lawn, more dark the shade.
IV.
They walked and talked; he told his trials o’er;
And often Mary brushed aside the tear,
And oft they joined to thank kind Heaven once more,
That thus his sufferings were rewarded here;
Then they would sit beneath the fountain’s bower,
And woo the breeze, or smiling bend the ear
To childly mirth, which, in its silver tone,
Soothed the rude wilds with music erst unknown.
V.
And all was happiness,—security
In blest seclusion. The rude storm seemed past,
The bow of promise spanned their life’s new sky;
No threatening cloud their prospects overcast,—
No shadow lowered; but Heaven with gracious eye
Looked smiling down and blest their toils at last.
Their Salem friends to join them soon will try,—
That they’re not here is all that brings a sigh.
VI.
Thus for a time did they anticipate
The bliss which Heaven for pilgrims has in store,
When their freed souls review their former state,
And bygone pains enhance their joys the more;
But yet one lingering fear of frowning fate,
Our Founder’s bosom lightly brooded o’er—
No Indian throng, as promised by the seer,
Had bid them welcome with Whatcheer! Whatcheer!
VII.
But let it pass;—perchance it was a dream;
His thoughts seemed wandering or disturbed at best,
When stood or seemed to stand, in doubtful gleam,
That form scarce earthly, and his ears addrest;—
Ay, let it pass—for ill would it beseem
So staid a man to be at all deprest
By visionary fears or superstitious dread,
Whilst Heaven is showering mercies on his head.
VIII.
“Waban,” he said, “a generous feast prepare,
We can be cheerful, and yet not be mad;
The good man’s smiles may be a praise or prayer;
The wicked only should be very sad.
God feeds the birds, my Mary, in the air,—
Hear how they thank Him with their voices glad.
The heart of man should nearer kindred own,
Joy in his smiles and sorrow in his frown.”
IX.
Then forth fared Waban to the winding shore,
And quickly laid its shelly treasure bare,
Nor failed the woody dingles to explore,
And trap the partridge or the nimble hare;
And soon beneath a beech, beside the door,
On marshalled stones the blazing fagots are;
And when with heat the pristine oven glows,
Waban his tribute gives, and covers close.
X.
Meanwhile our Founder went from place to place,
And did each plan of village grandeur name;
This rising mound the future church should grace,
Yon little dell the village school should claim;
That sloping lawn the council hall should base,
Where freemen’s voices should the law proclaim,
And ne’er to bigot yield the civil rod,
But save the Church by leaving her to God.
XI.
So pass the hours, till westward through the skies
The sun begins to turn, and, savory grown,
From Waban’s ready feast the vapors rise;
The group beneath the beech then sit them down;
“Thou kind and generous man,” our Founder cries,
“Our brave defender! thy complexion brown
Bars not thy presence;—sit thou at the board,—
Of these bright lands God made thy kind the lord.
XII.
“My valliant warrior like a Keenomp fought,
And Chepian’s priest before his valor fell!
But his white Sachem in the battle wrought
Too little for a chief he loves so well.”
“The dog—the dog! that had the children caught,”
Exclaimed the red man, “does his valor tell;
A manit-dog he was, for well he knew
Whate’er the priest of Chepian bade him do.
XIII.
“The priest of Chepian and his comrade came
To fight the white man and his warrior brave;
The fox-eared demon sought for other game,
And went to filch it from the rocky cave;
My Sachem white a manittoo o’ercame,
To demon dark a fatal wound he gave;
Brave is my Sachem, for he nobly slew
What Waban dreaded most,—that fearful manittoo!”
XIV.
“Brother,” said Williams, “under Power Divine,
That shields the just man in dark peril’s hour,
Thine was the victory, and the glory thine
To quell Apollyon’s priest—a demon’s power!
Henceforth the demon must his lands resign,
And thou must be Mooshausick’s Sagamore,
The right of conquest will do very well,
When Hell assails us, and we conquer Hell.
XV.
“But might the choice of either blameless go,
Mary! these fruits of suffering and of toils,
And racking cares through fourteen weeks of woe,
I’d prize far higher than the reeking spoils
Of all the nations laid by Cæsar low,
When he, the victor in Rome’s civil broils,
Sate, like the Jove he worshipped, o’er a world
Whose crowns were offered, and whose incense curled.
“And there is cause, I trow.—Who cannot see
That a dark cloud o’er our New England lowers?
The tender conscience struggles to be free;
The tyrant struggles, and retains his powers.
O, whither shall the hapless victims flee,
Where be their shelter when the tempest roars?
May it be here—may it be Heaven’s decree,
To make its builder of a worm like me.”
XVII.
While thus he spake, the neighboring thickets shook,
And from them issued one of mien austere;
And Williams knew a Plymouth elder’s look,
In doctrines stern—in practice most severe;
His gait was slow, and loath he seemed to brook
Such signs of comfort and of earthly cheer;
And up he came, they scarce could reason why,
Like a dark cloud along a cheerful sky.
XVIII.
The gloom that gathered o’er our Father’s breast,
He strove with heavy effort to dispel;
“Elder!” he said, “thou art an honored guest;
To see our ancient friends should please us well;
Thy journey long must give the banquet zest;
Come and partake our sylvan meal, and tell
The while what word or tidings thou mayst bear
From Plymouth’s rulers and our brethren there.”
“Williams,” he said, “I need no food of thine—
The wilds I thread not without store my own;
But I would fain beneath that roof recline
To-night, and rest my limbs till morn be shown;—
And there this eve some reasoning, I opine,
(For all may err,) a weighty theme upon,
May not be deemed amiss.—Perchance a light
Will on thee break and set thy feet aright.”
XX.
“Elder, whatever themes,” our Founder said,
“My scant attainments fit me to essay,
Shall not avoidance have from any dread
That thy strict logic may my faults betray;
That ‘all may err,’ means that our friends have strayed,
And not that we have wandered from the way;
It is a maxim to perversion grown,
And points to others’ faults to hide our own.
XXI.
“But as my Plymouth visitor requests,
We’ll seek that cottage; I have called it mine,
These hands have built it; but all friendly guests
May call it theirs, and, Elder, it is thine
While thou sojournest here. Whoever rests
Beneath its roof may not expect a fine,
A dungeon, scourge, or even banishment,
For heresy avowed, or doubted sentiment.”
XXII.
They sought the cottage.—Its apartments rude,
But still a shelter from the cold and heat,
A cheerful fire and fur-clad settles shewed,
And other comforts, simple, plain, and neat.
The Elder paused, and all the mansion viewed,
Then, with a long-drawn sigh, he took his seat,
And briefly added—“Thou hast labored, friend,
Hard—very hard! I hope for worthy end.”
XXIII.
He paused again, then solemnly began
A sad relation of the Church’s state;
O’er many a schism and false doctrine ran,
That had obtruded on its peace of late;
But most alarming was our Founder’s plan,
To leave things sacred to the free debate;
To make faith bow to erring reason’s shrine,
And mortal man a judge of creeds divine.
XXIV.
“This simple truth no Christian man denies,”
He thus continued, “that the natural mind
Is prone to evil as the sparks to rise,
And to the good is obstinately blind;
Who then sees not, that looks with wisdom’s eyes,
That God’s elect should rule the human kind?
The good should govern, and the bad submit,
And saints alone are for dominion fit?”
XXV.
Our Founder answered, “Art thou from the pit?
Get thee behind me, if such thoughts be thine;
Did Christ his gospel to the world commit,
That his meek followers might in purple shine?
He spurned the foul temptation, it is writ,
And the Great Tempter felt his power divine;
Art thou far wiser than thy Master grown,
And spurn’st a heavenly for an earthly crown?”
XXVI.
“Nay—nay, friend Williams!” the grave elder cried,
“It is that crown of glory to secure
That the True Church should for her saints provide
The shield of law ’gainst heresy impure;
Quell every schism—crush the towering pride
Of the dark Tempter, ere his reign is sure;
For many finds he who are servants meet
To sow for him the tares among the wheat.
XXVII.
“Men ever busy, searching for the new,
Scanning our creed as if it doubtful were,
These would we hold perforce our doctrines to,
And the vain labor to convert them spare;
God may in time their restless souls renew,
And give them of his grace a saving share;—
Meanwhile our Church their errors would restrain,
And to her creed their wayward minds enchain.”
XXVIII.
“A mortal thou!” our Founder here replied,
“Yet judge of conscience,—searcher of the heart
Thou, the elect?—but if it be denied,
How wilt thou prove it, or its proofs impart?
God gave to man that bright angelic guide,
A reasoning soul, his being’s better part;—
He gave her freedom; but thou wouldst confine
And cramp her action to that creed of thine.
XXIX.
“Who binds the soul extends the reign of hell;
She’s formed to err, but, erring, truth to find;
Pity her wanderings, but, O never quell
The bold aspirings of this angel blind!
God is her strength within, and bids her spell,
By outward promptings, the eternal Mind:
Long may she wander still in quest of light,
But day will dawn at last upon a polar night.”
XXX.
“A dangerous tenet that!” the Elder said;
“A fallen angel doubtless she may be;
If truth she find by natural reason’s aid,
It ever leads her to some heresy;
Indeed, the truth too often is betrayed
To minds ill-fitted for inquiry free;
From bad to worse, from worse to worst we go,
And end our being in eternal woe.
XXXI.
“Nature’s own truths do oft the mind mislead;
From partial glimpses men will judge the whole;
And it were better if our Church’s creed
Were learning’s object and its utmost goal;
Reason would then no higher purpose need,
Than, by it, point the yet erratic soul
To her high hope and everlasting rest!”
Williams this heard, and spake with kindling breast:
XXXII.
“God gave man reason, that his soul might be
Free as his glance that spans the universe;
All things around him prompt inquiry free,
All do his reason to research coerce;
The Heavens, the Earth, the many breeding sea,
All have their shapes and qualities to nurse
The soul’s aspirings, and, from blooming youth
To ripe old age, provoke the quest of truth.
XXXIII.
“Truth! I would know thee wert thou e’er so bad,
Bad as thy persecutors deem or fear,
Wert thou in more than Gorgon terrors clad,
Thy glance a death to every feeling dear;
Taught thou that God a demon’s passions had,
That Earth is Hell, and that the damned dwell here,
And death the end of all;—still would I know
The total Curse—the sum of being’s woe.
XXXIV.
“Yet fear not this, for each new truth reveals
Of God a nearer and a brighter view;
Anticipation lags behind, and feels
How mean her thought at each discovery new;
Her stars were stones fired in revolving wheels—
Truth! thine are worlds self-moved the boundless through
Who checks man’s Reason in her heavenward flight,
Would shroud, O God! thy glorious works in night!
XXXV.
“Whence didst thou learn that the Almighty’s plan
Required thy wisdom to protect and save,
That, when he sent his Gospel down to man,
Thou to defend it must the soul enslave,
Enthrone deceit, and place beneath its ban
The honest heart, that dares its sentence brave?
Full well I trow the Prince of Darkness fits
The blood of martyrs shed by hypocrites.
XXXVI.
“Hearken for once; just as the conscience pure
Is here God’s presence to my wayward will—
Not to constrain it, but to kindly lure
It on by duty’s path, from every ill;
So to the State the Christian Church, secure
From human thrall, should be a conscience, still
Ne’er to constrain, save by that heavenly light
Which bares the Wrong, and maketh plain the Right.”
XXXVII.
“No more, friend Williams,” said the Elder here,
“No more will we on this grave theme delay;
My hopes were high, and ’twas an object dear
To shed some light on thy benighted way;
But still wilt thou with sinful purpose steer
Thy little bark against the tempest’s sway;
On mayst thou go—I cannot say God speed!
But would thy object were some better deed.
XXXVIII.
“Couldst thou renounce thy purpose here to base
A State where heretics may refuge find,
I do not doubt that to some little grace
The Plymouth rulers would be well inclined;
But as it is, perhaps some other place,
Still more remote, may better suit thy mind;
But till the morn as may a guest befit,
My message hither do I pretermit.”
XXXIX.
Our Founder pondered on the Elder’s word;
What could this dark portentous message be,
With its delivery until morn deferred,
Lest it should mar night’s hospitality.
The wrath of Plymouth he had not incurred,
He with her Winslow was in amity;
Then what strange message had the Elder borne,
That utterance sought, and yet was hushed till morn!
XL.
This cause, mysterious, darkling, undefined,
Did by degrees each cheerful thought efface,
And poured portentous glooms along his mind,
That seemed reflected by each friendly face;
The matron sighed, and childhood disinclined
To mirth or sport, sought slumber’s soft embrace,
And soon the gathered night did all dispose,
To shun their boding thoughts in dull repose.
Morn comes again;—the inmates of the cot
Rise from scant slumber, and their guest they greet;
“Williams,” he said, “it is my thankless lot,
Thee with no pleasant message now to meet;
Nor hath our Winslow in his charge forgot
(For his behest I bear and words repeat)
His former friendship, but right loth is he
To vex his neighbors by obliging thee.
XLII.
“In short, thou art on Plymouth’s own domain;
Beyond the Seekonk is the forest free,—
This must thou leave, but there thou mayst maintain
Thy State unharmed, and still our neighbor be;
Fain had I spared thee this deep searching pain,
By showing thee thy dangerous heresy;
It may not be; hence, therefore, must thou speed;
The Narragansets may protect thy creed.”
XLIII.
To breathless statues turned the listeners stood,
Silent as marble and as cold and pale;
With vacant gaze our Sire the Elder viewed,
O’erwhelmed, confounded by this sudden bale;
As when some swain, deep in the sheltering wood,
Ere he has seen the tempest on the gale,
Marks the bright flash; the smitten senses reel;
He stands confounded ere he learns to feel.
XLIV.
At length reviving from the stunning shock,
His thoughts returning in a broken train,
Our Founder thus the speechless stupor broke:—
“I to my ancient friend may yet explain;
Just is my title here; the lands I took
Are part of Massasoit’s wide domain,
And fairly purchased; mine they dearly are;
Make this but known, and Plymouth must forbear.”
“And didst thou think,” the Elder cried, “to win
Of Pagan chief a title here secure?
Why not derive it from that man of sin
At papal Rome,—the Antichrist impure?
Our Church of Truth, against the Heathen thin,
Asserts her Canaan, and will make it sure.
Thy purchase feigned was by the Prophet shown
To Dudley, and by him to us made known.”
XLVI.
“My purchase feigned!” our Founder quickly cried—
“God made that Pagan, and to Him He gave
Breath of this air, drink from yon crystal tide,
Food from these forest lawns and yonder wave:
Yea, He ordained this region, far and wide,
To be his home in life, in death his grave.
Is thy claim better? Canst thou trace thy right
From one superior to the God of might?”
The Elder answered: “Thinkest thou this land
For demons foul and their red votaries made?
Did not Jehovah, with his own right hand,
Tempest for Israel when the Heathen fled?
Does Plymouth’s Church less in his favor stand?
Or spares he devils for the savage red?
As to our title, then, we trace it thus:
God gave James Stuart this, and James gave us.”
XLVIII.
“God gave James Stuart this!” our Founder cried,
Up-starting from his seat as he began,
“God gave James Stuart this!”—a choking tide
Of kindling feeling through his bosom ran,
To which his better part free speech denied,
Since all the Christian strove against the man,
And strove not all in vain;—yet, bursting forth,
His soul came big with grief that stifled half her wrath.
XLIX.
“God gave James Stuart this!—I marvel when!
Fain would I see the deed Omniscience wrote;
Elder! there are commandments counting ten,
Which Great Jehovah upon Sinai taught;
Has He of late exempted Plymouth’s men—
Reversed his justice and made sin no fault?
Taught them to covet of their neighbor’s store,
And licensed robbery of the weak and poor?
L.
“Behold these hands, which labor has made hard,—
Look at this weather-beaten brow and face,—
And ask yourself if to be thus debarred
And hunted from their fruits like beast of chase,
Demands not meekness more than God has spared
To human hearts in his abundant grace!
Followed e’en here!—Again compelled to flee!
As if this desert were too good for me!
LI.
“But I can go.—Oh, yes! I can submit;—
God in his mercy will give shelter still;
Go—tell your Dudley in the book ’tis writ
That the oppressor shall hereafter feel;
Yet, gracious Lord, grant that repentance fit
Him to receive the everlasting seal
Of thy salvation—that his lost estate
Be yet revealed, ere it is all too late!
LII.
“Grieve not, my Mary!—Children, do not weep!
Though yonder verdant lawns, and opening flowers,
And groves whose shades the murmuring streamlets sweep,
All perish for us now,—yet on far shores,
Perchance by yon blue bay or rolling deep,
Far from white brethren, mid barbarian powers,
Your father’s hands another glade may form,—
Another roof to shield you from the storm.”
LIII.
As here he ceased, in all the agony
Of mental pain he paced the cottage floor;
Absorbed in his own woes scarce did he see
The Elder pass, and leave his humble door;
His toils, cares, hopes, all lost; and poverty
Sudden, gaunt, naked, spread its glooms once more.
A clashing sound first broke this mental strife;
’Twas Waban, edging sharp his scalping knife.
LIV.
And such an ireful look, (his eyes so bright,
So played his muscles and so gnashed his teeth)—
Red warrior ne’er did show, save when in fight
His weapon makes the hostile heart a sheath,
And forces out the soul. He looked a sprite
Kindling a hell within!—Recoiling ’neath
The horrid feelings that the image woke,
Our Founder shrank, and thus the form bespoke:
LV.
“What fiend, O Waban! thus inflames thy breast?”
The spell of frenzy at the accents broke;
The red man paused, his hand the bosom pressed,
His eyes still flashing fire, and thus he spoke:
“My chief was angry with his pale-faced guest,
And at my sachem’s ire my own awoke;
I can pursue,—for viewless pinions lift
My nimble feet to speed thy vengeance swift.”
LVI.
A freezing horror crept through every vein,
As Williams heard the son of Nature speak;
And humbled stood he, for that ire profane
Was but his own that did new semblance take
In that wild man;—there stood the ancient Cain
And here the modern, better skilled to check
The wayward passions, and how dark soe’er
The mirror there might be, the real form was here.
LVII.
“Waban!” at length he said, “I grieve to see
That all I sowed fell on a barren rock;
How could my brother hope to gladden me
By such a deed? Thou dost thy sachem shock!
O! from thy savage nature try to flee;—
Lay down thy murderous knife and tomahawk,
And dwell on better themes. New toils invite,
And high rewards my brother shall requite.
LVIII.
“Oft have I heard my hunter name with pride
His long, deep, hollow, arrow-winged canoe;
Now drag her from the fern to Seekonk’s tide,
And bid her skim once more the waters blue;
She loves to rove, and we must far and wide
Seek other forests for a dwelling new;
Our toils here end; a cloud from Wamponand
Hangs o’er our glade, and blackens all the land.”
LIX.
A fickle race the red man’s kindred were,
Free as the elk that roved their native wood,
Here did they dwell to-day, to-morrow there,
As want or pleasure ruled the changeful mood;
And Waban loved adventures bold and rare,
Nor heard with sorrow of a new abode;
And forth he goes to seek his long canoe,
And trim her breast to skim the waters blue.
LX.
The while the infant group, from noon to night,
Passed here and there through all that cultured glade;
And sighed and wept, by turns, or sobbed outright,
As to its charms their last farewell they bade;
“Here father labored—here he slept till light
Renewed his toils,” they often thought or said;
And still the springing tears suffuse their eyes,
They dash them off—but still their sorrows rise.
LXI.
They plucked the blossoms from the blushing bush,
They quaffed the waters from the purling rill,
Their bread they scattered to the gentle thrush,
That seemed half-conscious of the coming ill;
The rabbit eyed them from his covert brush,
Their crumbs supplied the little sparrow’s bill;
And sadly then they sighed their last adieu,
“Our little friends, farewell! we sport no more with you.”
LXII.
Meantime the parents in the cottage sate,
Their bosoms heaving and their thoughts in gloom.
“O! what,” cried Mary, “is our coming fate?
And where, my husband, is our future home?
Will not dire famine on our footsteps wait,
And perils meet us whereso’er we roam?
Our harvest gone, who now can food supply?
Forced from this roof, where shall our children lie?”
LXIII.
“Trust we in God!” our pious Founder said;
“Doubt not the bounty of His providence,
Who Israel’s children through the desert led,
And in all perils was there sure defence;
He did not bid us this far forest tread,
To leave us here in want and impotence.
Warnings, my Mary, were most strangely given,
Such as I sometimes deem were sent from Heaven!
LXIV.
“Well can thy mind that stormy night recall,
The last in Salem that I dared abide,—
In fleecy torrents did the tempest fall,
Our little dwelling reeled from side to side;
The fading brands just glimmered on the wall,
Alone I sate, my heart with anguish tried,
When lo! a summons at the door I heard,
Deemed it a wretch distressed, the pass unbarred.
LXV.
“And straight appeared a venerable seer,
Such as on earth none ever saw before;
His temples spake at least their hundredth year,
In many a long and deeply furrowed score;
But, Oh! his eyes, in youthful glory clear,
Did from them a celestial radiance pour;
And then that face scarce seemed to veil the rays,
(Too bright for mortal!) of an angel’s blaze.
LXVI.
“And when he spake, methought the music clear
Of tongue seraphic, filled his heavenly tone;
It came so full, yet gently, on my ear,
It well might serenade the Almighty’s throne;
‘Williams,’ it said, ‘I come on message here
Of mighty moment, to this age unknown;
Thou must not dally, or the tempest fear,
But fly by morn into the forest drear.
LXVII.
“‘Thou art to voyage an unexploréd flood,
No chart is there thy lonely bark to steer;
Beneath her rocks, around her tempests rude,
And persecution’s billows in her rear,
Shall shake thy soul till it is near subdued;
But when the welcome of Whatcheer! Whatcheer!
Shall greet thine ears from Indian multitude,
Cast thou the Anchor there, and trust in God.’
LXVIII.
“He went away, and I could not detain
Him from departing in the stormy night;
He would but promise to be seen again
Where faith in freedom should my rest invite.
I’ve often dwelt on that prophetic strain,
Recalled that voice,—and rightly can recite
The words it uttered.—Oh that I had more
Their import weighed, and shunned this tyrant shore!
LXIX.
“For, Mary, deem it not a sinful thought,
That Heaven should give her counsels to restore
The soul to freedom.—Lo! what wonders wrought
The God of Christians for the Church of yore;
With heathen darkness was the conscience fraught,
And tyrants chained it to a barbarous lore;
To break like thraldom in a Christian land,
Angels may speak, and God disclose his hand.
LXX.
“This spot I rashly chose. No Indian train
Glad welcome gave to my enraptured ear,
And that mysterious form comes not again,
Inspiring courage; therefore hence we steer,
Nor land nor dwelling let us think to gain
Until the greeting of Whatcheer! Whatcheer!
Our journey stays,—there, there is our abode;
Our anchor there, our Hope, Almighty God!”
LXXI.
Thus spoke our Sire, and now, with ready hand
And spirits lightened, Mary did prepare
For their departure to another land,—
Alas! they knew not how and knew not where.
At eventide, red Waban from the strand,
The children from the glade, with cheerless air
Revisited the cot.—One more sad night,
And thence they journey at the rising light.
LXXII.
Upon the cottage roof the Whip-poor-will
That night sang mournful to the conscious glade;
The lonely owl forsook her valley still,
And perched and hooted in the neighboring shade;
The wolf returned, and lapped the purling rill,
Sate on its marge, and at the cottage bayed;
From all its howling depths the desert came,
And seemed its lost dominion to reclaim.