What Cheer; Or, Roger Williams in Banishment: A Poem

by Job Durfee

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,