CANTO SIXTH.
[Scene. Seekonk’s Mead, or Place of the First Settlement.]
The winds of March o’er Narraganset’s bay
Move in their strength—the waves with foam are white;
O’er Seekonk’s tide the tossing branches play,
The woods roar o’er resounding plain and height;
’Twixt sailing clouds, the sun’s inconstant ray
But glances on the scene—then fades from sight;
The frequent showers dash from the passing clouds;
The hills are peeping through their wintry shrouds.
II.
Dissolving snows each downward channel fill,
Each swollen brook a foaming torrent brawls,
Old Seekonk murmurs, and from every hill
Answer aloud the coming waterfalls;
Deep-voiced Pawtucket thunders louder still,—
To dark Mooshausick joyously he calls,
Who breaks his bondage, and through forests brown
Murmurs the hoarse response and rolls his tribute down.
But hark! that sound, above the cataracts
And hollow winds in this wild solitude,
Seems passing strange.—Who with the laboring axe,
On Seekonk’s eastern marge, invades the wood?
Stroke follows stroke;—some sturdy hind attacks
Yon ancient groves, which from their birth have stood
Unmarred by steel, and, startled at the sound,
The wild deer snuffs the gales,—then, with a bound,
IV.
Vaults o’er the thickets, and down yonder glen
His antlers vanish; on yon shaggy height
Sits the lone wolf, half-peering from his den,
And howls regardless of the morning light;
Unwonted sounds and a strange denizen
Vex his repose; soon, cowering with affright,
He shrinks away, for with a crackling sound,
Yon hemlock bows and thunders to the ground.
V.
Who on the prostrate trunk has risen now,
And does with cleaving steel the blows renew?
Broad is the beaver on his manly brow,
His mantle gray, his hosen azure blue;
His feet are dripping with dissolving snow,
His garments sated with the morning dew;—
Our Founder is he, and, though changed by long
And grievous suffering, steadfast still and strong.
VI.
Hard by yon little fountain clear and sheen,
Whose swollen streamlet murmurs down the glade,
Where groves of hemlock and of cedars green
Oppose to northern storms a barricade,
Stands the first mansion of his rude demesne,
A slender wigwam by red Waban made;
Their common shelter from the wintry blast;
And place of rest when daily toils are past.
VII.
Yet from the storm he seldom shrinks away,
With his own hands he labors now to rear
A mansion, where his wife and children may,
In happier days, partake the social cheer;
And unrelenting bigot ne’er essay
To make the free-born spirit quail with fear
At threat of scourge, or banishment or death,
For free belief, the soul’s sustaining breath.
VIII.
Day after day does he his toil renew;
From dawn till dark still doth his axe resound,
And falling cedars still the valley strew,
Or cumber with their trunks the littered ground;
The solid beams and rafters does he hew,
Or labors hard to roll or heave them round;
Or squares their sides, or shapes the joints aright
To match their fellows and the whole unite.
IX.
The beams now hewn, he frames the building square,
Each joint adjusting to its counterpart—
Tier over tier with labor does he bear,
Timber on timber closes every part,
Except where door or lattice to the air
A passage yields,—and from the walls now start
The rafters, matted over and between,—
Against the storm and cold,—with rushes green.
X.
Long did this task his patient cares engage,
’Twas labor strange to hands like his, I ween,
That had far oftener turned the sacred page
Than hewed the trunk or delved the grassy green;
But toils like these gave honors to the sage;
The axe and spade in no one’s hands are mean,
And least of all in thine, that toiled to clear
The mind’s free march—Illustrious Pioneer!
XI.
His cottage finished, he proceeds to rear
A strong rude paling round that verdant glade
His field and garden soon will flourish there,
And wild marauders may their fruits invade;
His maize may be a banquet for the bear,
And herds of deer may on his herbage tread;
But little thinks he that intruders worse
Than these will enter and his labors curse.
XII.
Now milder spring ushers its April showers,
And up fair Seekonk woos the southern breeze;
The birds are singing in their woodland bowers,
Green grows the ground and budding are the trees
The purple violets and wild strawberry flowers
Invite the visits of the murmuring bees;
And down the glade the twittering swallow slips,
And in the stream her nimble pinions dips.
XIII.
And now, with vigor and redoubled haste,
Our Founder delves to plant the foodful maize;
He turns the glebe, does nature’s rankness waste,
The boscage burn, and noxious brambles raze;
Then o’er the seed, on earth’s brown bosom placed,
The fertile mould with careful hand he lays;
Nor yet content,—still labors, other whiles,
The glade to gladden with a garden’s smiles.
XIV.
Then in the woods he carved the deep alcove,
And led the climbing vines from tree to tree;
But near the cottage left the birchen grove,
Its tassels waving in the breezes free;
While o’er the stream their boughs the cedars wove,
Where wound a walk adown the murmuring lea;
And gadding vines embowered the fount’s bright flow
’Twixt banks of vernal flowers in bloom below.
XV.
Ne’er hatchet touched the overhanging bough,
Whereon the robin built her wonted nest;
About the borders did the wild rose grow,
For there the thrush might soothe her brood to rest;
Nor would he banish from her dwelling low
The long-eared rabbit, but her young caressed;
Fed from his hand they gambolled in the grove,
Caressed our Sire in turn, and mimicked human love.
XVI.
And these long toils had Waban’s faithful aid;
His twanging bow announced the early dawn;
Boldly he pushed into the deepest shade,
Or scanned the tracks upon the dewy lawn;
With lusty arms he grappled on the glade
The growling bear, or caught the bounding fawn,
Or, with sure arrow and resounding bow,
Brought down the turkey from her lofty bough.
XVII.
Sometimes he would the river’s bed explore,
Where with sure grasp the slippery eels he caught;
Sometimes he delved along the sandy shore,
And to the lodge the shelly tribute brought;
And ever shared he with his Sagamore,
(For so to call our Founder he was taught,)
The produce of his toils; and ’twas his care
To parch the maize and spread the frugal fare.
XVIII.
So for a while they two in quietude,
With hopes auspicious, urged their task along,—
Lighter of heart; though Williams still would brood,
And inly marvel, o’er the missing throng
Of friendly Indians, issuing from the wood
To greet him with “What-Cheer” in voices strong;
And oft would wonder if perchance a vain
Illusion had beguiled his troubled brain.
XIX.
But omens dark and dire appeared at last:
The grim Pawaw had seen the mansion rise,—
Had from Mooshausick’s highlands often cast
On the advancing work his watchful eyes;
And often, wafted on the passing blast,
Our Sire had heard that wizard’s warning cries:—
Yet hoped that, baffled and chastised, his pride,
And courage too, had with his serpent died.
XX.
Vain hope! The close had scarce been made secure,
Ere Seekonk’s western marge was blazing bright,
And decked with horns, and furs, and paints impure,
The prophet with a comrade danced all night
Around the flame, and howling, did adjure
His manittoo that most abhorred the light
To give him aid, and, by or force or fraud,
His hated neighbor drive once more abroad.
XXI.
War! war! he threatened:—and when morning came,—
Though quenched the fire,—upon the margin he,
All trim for strife, bent his gigantic frame
O’er Seekonk’s severing flow, and toward the lea
Shook his ensanguined barb and smote the stream,
And muttered curses numbering three times three;
Then bent his bow, and sent across the flood
Darts armed with serpents’ fangs and red with blood.
And brandishing his blade, he jeering said,
That vengeance gave it eyes and appetite,
It soon would eat, but eat in silence dread;
That if the red men all were turning white,
He’d seek the white men that were turning red;
The path was open, and his foot was light;
The Shawmut[20] hunters would with greedy ear
Hear in what covert couched their stricken deer.
[20] The Indian name for Boston.
XXIII.
Then, with a hideous yell that rent the skies,
He sternly turned and tow’rd Mooshausick flew.
Waban who watched the scene with blazing eyes,
Swift answer gave in shouts of valor true.
From threats like these our Sire might harm surmise,
But that he deemed the wily wizard knew
How heavy was Miantonomi’s spear,
And, if ’twere needful, might be made to fear.
XXIV.
But, after this portentous morn, scarce sun
Looked on that glade, but brought them fresh alarms;
If Waban delved the shores or walked thereon,
Missiles around him flew from hidden arms;
His snares were plundered ere the morning shone,
Clubs smeared with blood and threatening deadly harms
Lay in his path, and voices strangely broke
From viewless forms on shrub, or tree, or rock.
XXV.
Oft from the vacant air came bitter jeer
In gibberish strange, and oft from under ground
A hellish mockery smote the hunter’s ear,
And he would start; but if he glanced around
And Williams saw, he banished every fear;
For well he knew his Sachem could confound
Such diabolic phantoms,—he who slew,
In Potowomet’s glade, the serpent manittoo.
XXVI.
Then taking courage he would seek the brake,
Cull the straight haft, and arm it with the bone
Or tooth of beaver, and the plumage take
From Neyhom wild to wing and guide it on
Straight to its mark, or with nice handling make
Of sinewy deer the bowstring tough, or hone
His glittering scalping-knife, and grimly feel
How sharp its point, how keen its edge of steel.
XXVII.
At length, no longer heedful of disguise,
Upon the opposing bank the wizard stood,
With meet compeer—both armed; their battle cries
And challenge fired brave Waban’s martial blood;
Scorning all counsel, to the marge he flies,
And shoots his arrows o’er the severing flood;
To taunts and jeers his bow alone replies,
And soon their hostile missiles span the skies.
XXVIII.
From tree to tree the champions fly and fight,
Driving or driven from the sheltering screen,
Each change, each movement, yielding to the sight
Their swarthy members through the foliage green;
Whereat their arrows follow, flight on flight,
With hideous yells at every pause between;
Now down the stream—now at the tumbling falls,
The petty battle raves, and wrath to vengeance calls.
XXIX.
Hour after hour thus raged the doubtful fight,
Until the combatants their shafts had spent;
Then to the river’s marge in peaceful plight,
Bearing the pipe with fumes all redolent,
The fraudful wizard came, as to invite
Across the stream to cheer quite innocent
And friendly league a neighbor and a friend;
“Come, let the pipe,” he said, “the battle end.
XXX.
“Waban is brave, and Tatoban is brave;
Hereafter let us live as neighbors kind,
And let thy arrows sleep; no more shall rave
This knife and hatchet; Tatoban was blind!”
“Go!” Waban cried, “thou and thy dastard slave!
Go trap the Neyhom, or the foolish hind;
But thinkest thou into thy open snare,
To lure the cunning fox, and slay him there?”
XXXI.
Thus closed the strife that day; another came,
And all was peace; another sun and still
Another rose and set, and still the same
Unbroken peace—no threatening sign of ill:
Quite undisturbed red Waban trapped his game
Or delved the shore—no foe appeared; until
Our Sire believed that he might safely bless
His weary hours with earth’s best happiness.
XXXII.
Waban, his only counsellor and friend,
Warrior and subject in this lone domain,
Did now the summons of his chief attend,
And, questioned by him, straightway answered plain.
“Waban,” said Williams, “do our battles end?
Is the war over—have we peace again?
No more on yonder bank the prophet stands
And wings his darts or whirls his blazing brands.”
XXXIII.
Waban replied, “Did ever noon-day light
On midnight break? Did ever tempest shed,
Just as it gathered, radiance mild and bright?
Heard not my Sachem what the prophet said,—
That if the red men were all turning white,
He’d seek such white men as were turning red?
Perchance he goes, and Waban has a fear
That to his cunning speech they’ll lend an ear.”
XXXIV.
“Waban, fear not; my pale-faced brethren are
All Christians, or at least would such be thought;
And dost thou think that Beelzebub, how fair
Soe’er his speech may be, could move them aught
Against their brother? It is better far,—
If it be true such vengeance he have sought,—
Than that he lurk among the bushes here,
To fill our days with care and nights with fear.
XXXV.
“But, Waban, I have now a task for thee;—
Think not of him; but let thy mind be here.
Whilst snows o’erspread the earth and ice the sea,
I parted from my wife and children dear;
’Twas stormy night, the hunter sheltered me,
And gave me in his lodge abundant cheer;
Then tow’rd the rising sun for me he sped,
And saw the home from which the wanderer fled.
XXXVI.
“There too he saw his little children play,
And the white hand which gave the blanket red;
But now that gloomy time seems far away,
For much has happened, many a moon has sped;
The lodge is built, the garden smiling gay;—
Will the swift foot once more the forest thread,
And guide the children and the snow-white hand,
With watchful tendance, to this distant land?”
XXXVII.
Waban replied: “The nimble-foot will go;—
But a gaunt wolf may haunt the hunter’s way,
And he will whet his darts, and string his bow,
And gird his loins as for the battle fray;
The Priest of Chepian ne’er forgets a foe;—
His vengeance lasts until a bloody day
Doth feed the crows, or still a bloodier night
Gives the gaunt wolf a feast ere dawning light.”
XXXVIII.
“God is our trust!” our pious Founder said,
“Arm, and go forth confiding in his might;
So far as e’er an exile’s foot dare tread
The ground forbidden him, thy sachem white
Will go to meet thee; and when morn has shed
Five times from eastern skies her golden light,
Will wait thee and his wife and children dear,
Hidden in Salem woods till thou appear.”
XXXIX.
Our Founder then the brief epistle traced,
Entreating first that some kind Salem friend,
To aid his little Israel through the waste,
Would for a while two well-trained palfreys lend;
Then to his wife, with kind expression graced,
Did meet directions for her guidance send;
Called her from Egypt, bade her cheerly dare
The desert pass, and find her Canaan there.
XL.
The morrow dawned, and Waban stood prepared;
His knife well sharpened and his bow well strung—
He waited only till his chief declared
His purpose full; then on his mantle flung,
Girded his loins, his brawny arms he bared,
And lightly through the rattling thickets sprung;
And soon the thunderings of the partridge tell
Where bounds his distant foot from dell to dell.