CANTO FIFTH.
I.
December’s sun is pale and low,
Chilly and raw the north winds blow,
Dark threatening clouds are floating by,
And Jamestown’s sons with sadden’d eye
Look out upon the dreary wild
Of woods and waters, where exiled,
And distant far from friends and home,
They see the storms of winter come.
One half their number they had lost,
Since on this wild and desert coast
They first set foot; and ere the spring
Fresh fruits and flowers again would bring,
They felt that others too must fall:
For though their number was but small,
Their store of food was smaller still;
And oft this thought a deadly chill
Sent to each heart: they saw the hour
Was coming soon, when famine’s power
Must sweep them off, as leaves are cast
On the cold earth by autumn’s blast.
But mid this gloom and prospect dread,
That o’er all hearts a sadness shed,
No matter by what foe assail’d,
Sir John’s brave spirit never quail’d.
Early and late he knew no rest;
He nursed the sick, sooth’d the distress’d,
Cheer’d the despairing, and anon,
With gun in hand, away has gone
To seek the wild duck on the wave,
Or game within the darksome wood,
The famish’d colonists to save,
And spread their common board with food.
II.
One morning early, while the gray
And sleeping mist on the river lay,
Ere yet the sun from his ocean bed
Had tinged the distant hills with red,
In quest of game Sir John had gone
Far down the river vale alone;
And standing on a gentle height
He view’d the silver winding James—
What vision glances on his sight?
What sudden fire his cheek inflames?
Is that a sail? Is that a ship,
Glides slowly round the headland dim?
With straining eye and parted lip,
He breathless stands, with moveless limb,
And throws his eager look afar,
Like the quick shooting of a star.
A sail? a ship? He looks again—
It is, it is—he sees it plain;
He sees the sails, he sees the hull,
An English flag at mast-head flies:
And now his throbbing heart is full,
And tears are crowding to his eyes;
Those eyes which had not known a tear,
Before this hour, for many a year.
III.
With a light heart, and step as light,
He soon retraced his homeward route,
And there the ship was full in sight,
And all the colonists were out
And gazing off upon the river.
With pious thankfulness some lift
Their eyes and hands to the great Giver
Of every good and perfect gift;
Some, wild with joy, run here and there,
Grasping each other’s eager hand;
Some with quick motion beat the air,
And some like moveless statues stand.
Slowly the ship comes sailing on,
And now she rides abreast the town;
The sailors up the shrouds have gone,
The ponderous anchor plunges down,
And curbs her gently to the breeze,
Like a proud steed that feels the bit;
And now she heads the rippling seas,
And her furling sails on the long yards flit.
A light boat launches from the shore,
Each oarsman nimbly plies his oar
Across the waters, bright and clear.
The tall ship rapidly they near,
And soon, half lost to view, they glide
To the deep shadow of her side,
Where the rocking boat seems but a speck;
Man after man mounts to the deck,
And here Sir John with joyous smile
Greets Newport from Britannia’s isle.
IV.
A thousand questions now are ask’d,
And a thousand answers given;
Sir John tells how with savages,
And famine, he has striven;
How in his light and open barge,
With scarce a dozen men,
He had scour’d the mighty Chesapeake,
Round all her shores had been,
And up the rivers from the bay
To where the waters fall,
And seen the wild and warlike tribes,
And dared the power of all.