CANTO SECOND.
[Scenes. The Wigwam—The Wilderness—Pawtucket Falls—Seekonk’s Meads—The Wigwam.]
It was the morning of a Sabbath day,
When Williams rose to Waban’s simple cheer,
But knew not where, save that vast forests lay
Betwixt his home and the lone wigwam here;
Yet ’twas a place of peace; no thing of clay,
’Twixt God and conscience in communion near,
Came, with profane and impious control,
To check the heavenward wanderings of his soul.
II.
God loves the wilderness; in deserts lone,
Where all is silent, where no living thing
Mars the hushed solitudes, where Heaven looks down,
And Earth looks up, each as if marvelling
That aught should be; and, through the vast unknown,
Thought-breathing silence seems as uttering
The present God,—there does He rear his throne,
And, tranced in boundless thoughts, the soul doth own
III.
And feel his strength within.—This day once more,
In place thus sacred, did our Founder keep;
None, save the Deity he bent before,
Marked the devotions of his feelings deep.
None, do I say? yet there was Waban poor;
Alas! his mind in utter night did sleep;
He saw our Founder at his earnest prayer,
But knew not what his supplications were.
IV.
Yet earnestly the pious man besought,
That Heaven would deign to shed the Gospel light
On the kind pagan’s soul, as yet untaught
Save in the dreams of her primordial night;
And much he prayed, that to the truth when brought,—
Cleansed of his sins in garments pure and white,—
He might subdue the fierceness of his clan,
And gain man refuge from intolerant man.
V.
Williams the task of goodness now essayed,
To win the wanderer to a worship new;
The utter darkness that his soul arrayed,
Concealed her workings from our Founder’s view,
Save when some question, rare and strange, betrayed
His dream-bewildered glimpses of the true.—
Long was the task; and Williams back began,
At earth’s creation and the fall of man.
VI.
He told how God from nothing formed the earth,
And gave each creature shape surpassing fair;
How He in Eden, at their happy birth,
Placed with His blessing the first human pair;
How, disobeying, they were driven forth,
And they, and theirs, consigned to sad despair,
Until, incarnate, God in pity gave
Himself for man, and made it just to save.
VII.
He then told how the blessed martyrs bore
The chains of dungeons, and the fagot’s flame,
Glad that their sufferings might attest the more
Their perfect faith in their Redeemer’s name;
How His disciples past from shore to shore,
Salvation’s joyful tidings to proclaim;
How hither now they brought the Gospel’s light
To cheer the red men wrapt in pagan night.
VIII.
Waban attentive listened to the strain,
And at its close for long in silence sate;
His visage did a graver cast attain
And all his heart’s deep feelings indicate.
At length he uttered thus the mental train:—
“Weak is my soul, and dark is her estate!
No book has she to tell of Manit high,
Except this outstretched earth and starry sky.
IX.
“Great news Awanux brings the red men here—
News that their legends old doth much excel;
Yet give to Waban the attentive ear,
And the traditions of his sires he’ll tell.
From days afar, down many a rolling year—
Down to thy brothers red—their fathers’ tale
Comes to inform them, in their mortal state,
What powers they should revere—what deprecate.”
X.
Here Waban paused, and sitting mused a space,
As pondering gravely on the mighty theme;
Deep thought was graven on his earnest face,
And still his groping memory did seem
To gather up the legends of his race.
At length he roused, as from a passing dream,
And from his mat, majestically slow
Rearing his form, began in accents low:
XI.
“Brother, that time is distant—far away,
When Heaven or Earth or living thing was not,
Save our great God, Cawtantowit, who lay
Extended through immensity, where naught
But shoreless waters were—and dead were they;
No living thing did on their bosom float,
And silentness the boundless space did fill;
For the Great Spirit slept—and all was still.
XII.
“But though he slept, yet, as the human soul
To this small frame, his being did pervade
The universal space, and ruled the whole;
E’en as the soul, when in deep slumber laid,
Doth her wild dreams and fantasies control,
And give them action, color, shape and shade
Just as she wills. But the Great Spirit broke
His sleep at last, and all the boundless shook.
“In a vast eagle’s form embodied, He
Did o’er the deep on outstretched pinions spring;
Fire in his eye lit all immensity,
Whilst his majestically gliding wing
Trembled hoarse thunders to the shuddering sea;
And, through their utmost limit quivering,
The conscious waters felt their Manittoo,
And life, at once, their deepest regions knew.
XIV.
“The mountain whale came spouting from below,
The porpoise plunged along the foaming main,
The smaller fry in sporting myriads go,
With glancing backs above the liquid plain;
Yet still refused her giant form to show—
Ay, sullenly below did yet remain
Earth-bearing Tortoise, the Unamis vast,
And o’er her still the loftly billows past.
XV.
“Then great Cawtantowit in his anger spoke,
And from his flaming eyes the lightnings past,
And from his wings the tenfold thunders broke.
The sullen Tortoise heard his words at last—
And slowly she her rocky grasp forsook,
And her huge back of woods and mountains vast
From the far depths tow’rd upper light began
Slowly to heave.—The affrighted waters ran
XVI.
“Hither and thither, tumultous and far;
But still Unamis, heaving from below
The full formed earth, first, through the waves did rear
The fast sky-climbing Alleghany’s brow,
Dark, huge and craggy; from its summits bare
The rolling billows fell, and rising now,
All its broad forest to the breezy air
Came out of Ocean, and, from verdure fair,
XVII.
“Shed the salt showers. Far o’er the deep,
Hills after hills still lift their clustered trees,
Wild down the rising slopes the waters leap,
Then from the up-surging plain the ocean flees,
Till lifted from the flood, in vale and steep
And rock, and forest waving to the breeze,
Earth, on the Tortoise borne, frowned ocean o’er,
And spurned the billows from her thundering shore.
XVIII.
“But great Cawtantowit, on his pinions still,
O’er the lone earth majestically sprung,
And whispered to the mountain, vale and hill,
And with new life the teeming regions rung;
The feathered songsters tune their carols shrill,
Herds upon herds the plain and mountain throng;
In the still pools the cunning beavers toil,
And the armed seseks[5] their strong folds uncoil.
[5] Sesek—rattlesnake.
“Yet man was not.—Then great Cawtantowit spoke
To the hard mountain crags and called for man:
And sculptured, breathing, from the cleaving rock,
Sprang the armed warrior, and a strife began
With living things.—Hard as his native block,
Was his stone heart, and through it ran
Blood cold as ice—and the Great Spirit struck
This cruel man, and him to atoms broke.
XX.
“Then He the oak, of fibre hard and fine,
With the first red man’s soul and form endowed,
And woman made he of the tapering pine,
Which ’neath that oak in peaceful beauty bowed;
She on the red man’s bosom did recline,
Like the bright rainbow on the thunder-cloud.
And the Great Spirit saw his work divine,
And on the pair let fall His smile benign.
XXI.
“He gave them all these forests far and near,
The forms that fly, and those that creeping go,
The healthful fountains, and the rivers clear,
And all the broods that sport the waves below;
Then gave he man the swiftness of the deer,
And armed his hands with arrows and the bow,
And bade him shelter still his consort dear,
And tread his large domain without a peer.
“Then did he send Yotaanit on high,
(For Gods he fashioned as he formed the land,)
And bade him star with fires the azure sky,
And kindle the round blaze of Keesuckquand;
And then, to cheer by night the hunter’s eye,
Bright Nanapaushat sprung from Wamponand;
Thus with his will the manittoos comply,
And every region knows its deity.[6]
“All things thus were formed from what was good,
And the foul refuse every evil had;
But it had felt the influence of the God,
(How should it not?) and a black demon, sad
And stern and cruel, loving strife and blood,
Filled with all malice, and with fury mad,
Sprang into life:—such was fell Chepian’s birth,
The hate of gods, and terror of the earth.
XXIV.
“Then to the south-west the Great Spirit flew,
Whence the soft breezes of the summer come,
And from the depths Sowaniu’s[7] island drew,
And bade its fields with lasting verdure bloom.
O’er it he bent another welkin blue,
Which never night nor clouds nor tempests gloom,
And kindled suns the lofty arches through,
And bade them shine with glory ever new.
[7] Sowaniu—here of three syllables—was written by Williams, “Sowwainiu.”
XXV.
“When thus Cawtantowit had finished all,
No more did he on eagle’s pinions roam,
There did he limits to his works install,
And centre there his everlasting home;
There did he cast the eagle and recall
His pristine shape, and manit-man become;
There still he dwells, the all-pervading soul
Of men and manittoos—yea, of creation’s whole.
XXVI.
“All that is good does from Cawtantowit flow;
All that is evil Chepian doth supply;
Praying for good we to Cawtantowit bow,
And shunning evil we to Chepian cry;
To other manittoos we offerings owe,
Dwell they in mountain, flood, or lofty sky;
And oft they aid us when we hunting go,
Or in fierce battle rush upon the foe.
“And manittoos, that never death shall fear,
Do likewise in this mortal form abide;
What else, my brother, is there beating here?
What heaves this breast—what rolls its crimson tide?
Whilst, like Cawtantowit, doth the soul appear
To live through all and over all preside;
And when her mortal mansion here decays,
She to Sowaniu’s blessed island strays,
“There aye to joy; if, whilst she dwelt with men,
She wisely counseled and did bravely fight,
Or watchful caught the beavers in the glen,
Or nimbly followed far the moose’s flight;
But if a sluggard and a coward, then
To rove all wretched in the glooms of night,
Misled by Chepian, a poor wandering ghost,—
In swamps and fens and bogs and brambles lost.
XXIX.
“And now, my brother, rightly worship we,
When to Cawtantowit we make our prayer?
Or when for help to Chepian we flee,
And pray that us from every harm he spare?
For every harm is all his own, we see,
And good Cawtantowit has ne’er a share—
Then why should not I Chepian sue to be
Much sparing of his harm to mine and me?”
XXX.
Williams made answer, “When red warriors brave
The fight’s dark tempest and for glory die,
Does Waban tremble whilst the battles rave,
And at the hurtling arrows wink his eye?
Or, basely cowering, does he mercy crave
Of the red hatchet o’er him lifted high?
Who prays to Chepian is a cringing slave,
And, dying, fills at last a coward’s grave.”
XXXI.
Strongly these words to Waban’s pride appealed;
Yet back upon him did the memory rush
Of by-gone ages, and of many a field
Where fought his fathers, who with victory flush,
Not to Cawtantowit, but to Chepian kneeled,
And thanked his aid.—They cowards! and the blush,
That in their worship fear should seem revealed,
Was scantly by his tawny hue concealed.
XXXII.
At last he said, “My brother doubtless knows—
He has a book which his Great Spirit wrote:
Brave were my fathers, yet did they repose
With hope in Chepian, and his aid besought
When forth they marched to shed the blood of foes;
But maybe they, like Waban, never thought
That they were cowards, when they fiercely prayed
That Evil One to give their vengeance aid.
XXXIII.
“Waban will think, and should it seem like fear—
Waban ne’er shrunk when round him battle roared,
And at the stake when bound, his torturers near,
Among the clouds thy brother’s spirit soared
And scorned her foes—but should it seem like fear
To worship Chepian, whom his sires adored,
He will no more be that dread demon’s slave;
For ne’er will Waban fill a coward’s grave.”
XXXIV.
Thus in grave converse did they pass the day,
Till night returning brought them slumbers sweet;
And, with the morrow, shone the sun’s broad ray
Serenely down on Waban’s lone retreat.
Then Williams might have journeyed on his way,
But doubt and darkness still restrained his feet;
And so with Waban made he further stay
To learn about the tribes that round him lay.
XXXV.
Hence may he secretly to Salem write,
And friends approving, still his plans arrange;
For Waban soon will bear his peltry light
To Salem’s mart, and there may interchange
The mute epistles, meant for friendly sight,—
Unseen of eyes inimical or strange,
Lest rumor of them reach the bigot’s ear,
And persecution find him even here.
XXXVI.
Among the several tribes around to go,
And sound the feelings of each different clan,
Seemed not unmeet; but little did he know
How they might treat a pale-faced outlawed man,
Friendless and homeless, wandering to and fro,
And flying from his own white brethren’s ban;
They, for a price, might strike the fatal blow,
Or bear him captive to his ruthless foe.
XXXVII.
Better it were, so deemed our Father well,
To seek and win the savage by degrees,
Since to his lot the dangerous duty fell,
(For such did seem high Heaven’s all-wise decrees),
To found unarmed a State where rung the yell
Of barbarous nations on the midnight breeze;
Against the scalping-knife with no defence
Or safeguard but his heart’s benevolence.
With only this, his buckler and his brand—
This, yet unproved and doubted by the best,—
In cheerless wilds, mid many a savage band,
Spurned from his home, by Christian men opprest,
Must he the warrior’s weapon turn, his hand
Unnerve, and gently o’er his rugged breast
Gain mastery. The panther by the hare
Must be approached and softened in his lair.
XXXIX.
That night, returning from the accustomed pool,
Came Waban laden with the beavers’ spoils,
And joy seemed dancing in his very soul
As he displayed the produce of his toils;
Much he rejoiced, and Williams heard the whole,—
How long he watched, how many were his foils;
Then how the cunning beasts were captured all,
As through the fractured ice they sought to crawl.
XL.
“Bravely,” said Williams, “has my brother done,
No more the cunning wights will mock his skill.
Waban is rich; will he not hie him soon
To the pale wigwams, and his girdle fill
With the bright wampum?—Ere to-morrow’s sun
Shall hide behind the crest of yonder hill,
Waban may gain the pale-faced stranger’s town,
And in his brother’s wigwam sit him down.”
XLI.
“The hunter goes,” said Waban in reply;
Then fired his calumet and curled its smoke,
And silent sate in all the dignity
Which conscious worth can give the human look.
But when the fragrant clouds to mount on high
Had ceased, he from the bowl the embers shook,
And spread on earth the brown deer’s rustling hide,
Expanding to the eye its naked side.
XLII.
Then thus he spake: “My brother doth require
Waban to show where neighboring Sachems reign;—
Doubtless he seeks to light his council fire
Within some good and valiant chief’s domain,
That he may shun the persecutor’s ire,
And pray his God without the fear of men.
On Waban’s words my brother may repose,
Whilst these far feet imprint the distant snows.”
XLIII.
Then from the hearth a quenchéd brand he took,
And on the skin traced many a curving line;
Here rolled the river, there the winding brook,
Here rose the hills, and there the vales decline,
Here spreads the bay, and there the ocean broke,
Along red Waban’s map of rude design.
The work now finished, he to Williams spoke,
“Here, brother, on the red man’s country look.
XLIV.
“Here’s Waban’s lodge, thou seest it smokes between
Dark rolling Seekonk and Cohannet’s wave;[8]
Both floods on-flowing through their borders green,
In Narraganset’s basin find their grave.
O’er all the country ’twixt those waters sheen
Reigns Massasoit, Sachem good and brave;
Yet he has subject Keenomps far and near,
Who bring him tribute of the slaughtered deer,
[8] Cohannet, the Indian name for Taunton, is here applied to the river.
“And bend his battle bow.—Strong is he now,
But has been stronger. Ere dark pestilence
Devoured his warriors—laid his hundreds low,—
That Sachem’s war-whoop roused to his defence
Three thousand bow-men; and he still can show
A mighty force, whene’er the kindling sense
Of common wrong does in the bosom glow,
And prompts to battle with the offending foe.
“His highest chief is Corbitant the stern;
He bears a fox’s head and panther’s heart,
He ’gainst Awanux does in secret turn,
Sharps his keen knife, and points his thirsty dart;
His council fires in Mattapoiset[9] burn,
Of Pokanoket’s woods his licensed part.
Cruel he is, and terrible his train—
Light not your fires within that wolf’s domain.
[9] Mattapoiset, now Swansey.
“Here, tow’rd the winter, where the fountains feed
These rolling rivers, do the Nipnets dwell;
They Massasoit bring the skin and bead,
And rush to war when rings his battle yell;
Valiant are they, yet oft their children bleed,
When the far West sends down her Maquas fell;
Warriors who hungry on their victims steal,
And make of human flesh a dreadful meal.
“Here lies Namasket tow’rd the rising sun;
There Massasoit spends his seasons cold;
The warriors there are led by Annawan,
Of open hand and of a bosom bold;
Here farther down, Cohannet’s banks upon,
Spreads broad Pocasset, strong Apannow’s hold;
The bowmen there tread Massasoit’s land,
E’en to Seconnet’s billow-beaten strand.
XLIX.
“Still tow’rd the rising sun might Waban show
And count each tribe, and each brave Keenomp name;
But then his brother does not wish to go
Nearer the pale-face and the fagot’s flame;
But rather tow’rd the tomahawk and bow,
And would the friendship of the red man claim:
Therefore will Waban, on the western shores,
Count Narraganset’s men and sagamores.
“Two mighty chiefs—one cautious, wise and old,
One young and strong, and terrible in fight—
All Narraganset and Coweset hold;
One lodge they build, one council fire they light;
One sways in peace, and one in battle bold;
Five thousand warriors give their arrows flight;
This is Miantonomi, strong and brave,
And that Canonicus, his uncle grave.[10]
“Dark rolling Seekonk does their realm divide
From Pokanoket, Massasoit’s reign;
Thence sweeping down the bay, their forests wide
Spread their dark foliage to the billowy main;
Thence tow’rd the setting sun by ocean’s side,
Stretches their realm to where the rebel train,
Ruled by grim Uncas, with their hatchets dyed
In brother’s blood, on Pequot stream abide.[11]
LII.
“Canonicus is as the beaver wise,
Miantonomi as the panther bold;
But tow’rd the faces pale their watchful eyes
Are oft in awful thinking silence rolled;
And often in their heaving bosoms rise
Thoughts that to none but Keenomps they have told;
They seem two buffaloes the herds that lead,
Scenting the hunters gathering round their mead.
“When first his fire Awanux kindled here,
Haup’s[12] chief was weak, and broken was his heart;
Disease had swept his warriors far and near,
And at his breast looked Narraganset’s dart;
Awanux gave him strength, and with strange fear
Did M’antonomi at the big guns start;
He dropt his hatchet; but his hate remains,
And only counsel wise his wrath restrains.
[12] Haup, or Mount Hope, the summer residence of Massasoit.
LIV.
“He sees the strangers spreading far around,
And earth turn pale as fast their numbers grow,
And fiercely would he to the battle bound,
And for his country strike the deadly blow,
But that behind the Pequot’s yells resound,
And on his left the Nipnet bends the bow;
And even thus his hatchet scarcely sleeps,—
It dreams of Haup, and in its slumber leaps.
LV.
“But, brother, still Miantonomi is
A valiant Sachem—yea, and generous too,
And gray Canonicus is just and wise,
His hands are ever to his tongue most true;
If from their lands my brother’s smoke should rise,
Whate’er those Sachems promise, they will do;
But Waban still doth not his friend advise
To cross the Seekonk where their country lies.
LVI.
“Brother, attend and hear the reasons why;—
There at Mooshausick dwells a dark pawaw,
Who hates Awanux, doth his God defy,
And Chepian worships with the deepest awe;
He’ll give my brother’s town a cloudy sky,
And to his councils under-sachems draw;
E’en now he whets the Narraganset knife,
Points at our clan, and thirsts for human life.
LVII.
“Safer on Seekonk’s hither border may
My brother build, and wake his council blaze;
Clear are the meads—the trees are swept away
By mighty burnings in our fathers’ days.
There early verdure spring and flow’rets gay,
Long grows the grass, and thrifty is the maize;
And good old Massasoit’s sheltering wing
Will shield thy weakness from each harmful thing.”
LVIII.
“Brother, I thank thee,” said our Founder here,
“Oft have I seen thy chief on Plymouth’s shore;
I will to-morrow seek those meadows clear,
And thy fair Seekonk’s hither banks explore.
But will not Waban pass Namasket near,
Where oft that wise and good old Sagamore,
Brave Massasoit, spends the season drear?”
“He will, my brother”—“Then let Waban hear:
LIX.
“Tell thou that Sachem, generous and wise,
That Williams lingers in thy cabin low,
That he his children and his country flies,
To shun the anger of a Christian foe;
And that to him his pale friend lifts his eyes,
And asks protection.—Tell him that his woe
Springs from this thought, and from this thought alone,
God can be worshipped but as God is known.”
LX.
A pause ensued, and Waban silent sate;
Yet to himself his lips repeating were;
At length he answering broke the pause sedate,
“Waban remembers, and the talk will bear.”
Then he in silence fired his calumet,
And gave its vapors to the wigwam’s air,
Whilst Williams wrote, with stationery rude,
His first epistle from the lonely wood.
LXI.
’Twas on the inner bark stript from the pine,
Our Father penciled this epistle rare;
Two blazing pine-knots did his torches shine,
Two braided pallets formed his desk and chair;
He wrote his wife the brief familiar line,
How he had journeyed, and his roof now where;
And that poor Waban was his host benign,
And bade her cheer and gave him blankets fine.
LXII.
Then bade her send the Indian presents, bought
When first they suffered persecution’s thrall,—
The strings of wampum, and the scarlet coat,
The tinseled belt and jeweled coronal;
The pocket Bible, which his haste forgot,
For he had cheering hopes of Waban’s soul;
Then gave her solace to the bad unknown,
That God o’errules and still protects his own.
LXIII.
And to the hunter Williams now presents
The secret charge, with all directions meet;
For Waban means to take his journey hence
Ere dawns the day upon his lone retreat;
And then once more did sleep our Founder’s sense
And knowledge steal away till morn complete;
When he awoke and found his host was gone,
The lodge all silent, and himself alone.
LXIV.
His fast he broke with the accustomed prayer,
And trimmed him for his walk to Seekonk’s side;
Calm was the morn, and pure the winter air,
As from the wigwam forth our Founder hied;
So tall the pines—so thick the branches were,
That, through their screens, the heavens were scarce espied;
But melting snows and dripping foliage prove
The South blows warmer in the fields above.
LXV.
Now from the swamp to upland woods he past,
Where leafless boughs branched thinner overhead,
And saw the welkin by no cloud o’ercast,
And felt the settled snows give firmer tread.
Now all was calm, no wild and thundering blast
Mixed earth with heaven, as through the boughs it sped;
And far as eye the boundless forest traced,
Glimmered the snow and stretched the lonely waste.
LXVI.
Onward he went, the magnet still his guide,
And through the wood his course due westward took;
Across his path, with antlers branching wide,
The red deer often from the thicket broke;
The timid partridge, at his rapid stride,
On whirring wings the sheltering bush forsook,
And the wild turkey foot and pinion plied,
Or from her lofty bough uncouthly cried.
LXVII.
At last a sound like murmurs from the shore
Of far-off ocean, when the storm is bound,
Grows on his ear, increasing more and more
As he advances, till the woods resound
And seem to tremble with the constant roar
Of many waters—Ay, the very ground
Beneath him quivers,—and, through arching trees
Bright glimmering and gliding on, he sees
LXVIII.
The river flowing to its dizzy steep
’Twixt fringing forests, from so far as sight
Can track its course, and, rushing, oversweep
The rocky precipice all frothy white,
With noise like thunder in its headlong leap,
And springing sun-bows o’er its showery flight,
And bursting into foam, tumultuous go
Down the deep chasm, to smoke and boil below.
LXIX.
Thence, hurrying onward through the narrow bound
Of banks precipitous, its torrents go,
Till by the jutting cliffs half wheeling round,
They pass from sight among the hills below.
There paused our Father, ravished with the sound
Of the wild waters, and their rapid flow,
And there, alone, rejoiced that he had found
Thy Falls, Pawtucket, and where Seekonk wound.
LXX.
And as he dallied on its margin still,
His restless thought did on the future pause:
Here might his children drive the busy mill,
Here whirl the stones, here clash the riving saws;
But little did he think the torrent’s will
Would ever yield so far to human laws,
As from the maid the spindle to receive
And spin for her, and her fair raiment weave.
LXXI.
Reluctantly he left the scene, and fast
Down Seekonk’s eastern bank pursued his way,
Seeking for Waban’s meads; yet often cast
His glances o’er the river, where the gray
Primeval giants, meet for keel or mast,
Stood, towering and distinct, in proud array;
And wore to his presaging eyes the air
Of lofty ships and stately mansions fair.
LXXII.
Still onward, by the eastern bank he sped;
Here stretched the thicket deep, there swampy fen,
Here sunk the vale, there rose the hillock’s head;
Oaks crowned the mound, and cedars gloomed the glen,
Where’er he moved;—at length his footsteps led
Where a bright fountain, sparkling like a gem,
Burst from the caverned cliff, and, glittering, wound
Its copious streamlet, with a murmuring sound,
LXXIII.
Far down the glade; and groves of cedars green,
With woven branches on the winter side,
Repelled the northern storm, whilst clear and sheen,
Crisped by its pebbly bed, the glancing tide
Gleamed in the sun, or darkened where the screen
Of boughs o’erhung its music-murmuring glide;—
It laughed along;—and its broad Southern glade
Was bordered deep by woods of massy shade.
Charmed with the scene, our sire explored the place,
And penetrated deep the thickets round;
At length his vision opened on a space
Level and broad, and stretching without bound
Southward afar; nor rose o’er all its face
A tree, or shrub, or rock, or swelling mound;
Yet, in large herds dotting the snows, appear,
With antic gambols, the far bounding deer;
LXXV.
And, further down, the Narraganset flood,
Unfurrowed yet by keel—its fretted blue
With isles begemmed, and skirted by the wood
Of far Coweset,—opens on his view;
So long he had beneath the forest trod,
That, when the prospect on his vision grew,
His soul as from a prison seemed to fly
And range in thought through an immensity.
LXXVI.
Raptured he paused.—Here then was Waban’s mead;
In yonder little glen, the fountain by,
He’d rear his shelter—here his flocks should feed,
Cropping the grass beneath the summer sky;
There by his cot he’d sow the foodful seed,
And round his garden raise a paling high;
And there at twilight, should his herds be seen,
Following the tinkling bell from pastures green.
LXXVII.
Ay, here, in fancy, did he almost see
A lovely hamlet in the future blest,
Where Christians all might mutually agree
To leave their God to judge the human breast;
A place of refuge whitherto might flee
The hapless exile for his faith opprest,
And find his lately trammelled conscience free,
And for the scourge and gibbet—charity.
LXXVIII.
He thought he saw the various spires ascending
Of many churches, all of different kind,
And heard the Sabbath bells harmonious blending
Their calls to worshippers of various mind;
And saw the people as harmonious wending
To several worships, as their faith inclined;
And felt that Deity might bend the ear,
Such harmony from various chords to hear.
LXXIX.
But still across his mind a shadow came—
A doubt that seemed a superstitious fear;
For yet no Indian throng, with loud acclaim,
Had bid the welcome of Whatcheer! Whatcheer!
Till when he should be tossed;—as did proclaim
That nameless stranger—that mysterious seer;—
But from Haup’s Sachem he a grant will gain;
Such were best welcome from that Sachem’s train.
LXXX.
Full of this thought, he turned at close of day,
And gained the humble lodge as night came down;
And he could scarcely brook the short delay,
Till Waban, coming from the white man’s town,
Should from Namasket, where the Sachem lay,
The cheering welcome bring, or blasting frown;
For thou, Soul-Liberty, couldst then no more
Than build thy hopes on that rude sagamore.