Читать книгу What Cheer; Or, Roger Williams in Banishment: A Poem - Job Durfee - Страница 6

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[Scenes. The Fireside at Salem—The Wilderness—The Wigwam.]

I sing of trials, toils and sufferings great,

Which Father Williams in his exile bore,

That he the conscience-bound might liberate,

And to the soul her sacred rights restore;—

How, after flying persecution’s hate,

And roving long by Narraganset’s shore,

In lone Mooshausick’s vale at last he sate,

And gave soul-liberty her Guardian State.

II.

He was a man of spirit true and bold;

Fearless to speak his thoughts whate’er they were;

His frame, though light, was of an iron mould,

And fitted well fatigue and change to bear;

For God ordained that he should breast the cold

And wet of northern wilds in winter drear,

And of red savages protection pray

From Christians, but—more savage still than they.

III.

Midwinter reigned; and Salem’s infant town,

Where late were cleft the forests’ skirts away,

Showed its low roofs, and, from their thatching brown

Sheeted with ice, sent back the sun’s last ray;

The school-boys left the slippery hillock’s crown,

So keen the blast came o’er the eastern bay;

And pale in vapors thick the sun went down,

And the glassed forest cast a sombre frown.

IV.

The busy house-wife guarded well the door,

That night, against the gathering winter storm—

Did well the walls of all the cot explore

Where’er the snow-gust might a passage form;

And to the couch of age and childhood bore

With anxious care the mantle thick and warm;

And then of fuel gathered ample store,

And bade the blaze up the rude chimney roar.

V.

That night sate Williams, with his children, by

The blazing hearth—his consort at his side;

And often did she heave the heavy sigh

As still her task of needle-work she plied;

And, from the lashes of her azure eye,

Did often brush the starting tear aside;

For they at Spring the savage wilds must try,—

’Twas so decreed by ruthless bigotry.

VI.

Beside the good-man lay his Bible’s fair

Broad open page upon the accustomed stand,

And many a passage had he noted there,

Of Israel wandering o’er the desert’s sand,

And each assurance he had marked with care,

Made by Jehovah, of the promised land;

And from the sacred page had learned to dare

The exile’s peril, and his ills to bear.

VII.

And, while the holy book he pondered o’er,

And often told, to cheer his consort’s breast,

How, for their faith, the blest apostles bore

The exile’s wanderings and the dungeon’s pest,

A heavy foot approached his humble door,

And some one, opening, instant entrance prest:

A well-known elder was he, strict and sour,—

Strong in a church ensphered in civil power.

VIII.

“I come,” he said in accents hard and stern,

“The Governor’s and Council’s word to bear:

They are convened, and hear, with deep concern,

That thou abusest their indulgence fair;

Ay, with resentment and abhorrence learn

That still thou dost thy specious tenets share

With visitors, who, smit therewith, discern

Strange godliness in thee, and from us turn.

IX.

“Till spring we gave; and thou wast not to teach

Thy interdicted doctrines here the while,

But curb thy tongue, or with submissive speech

The church regain, and quit thy errors vile;

Of which condition thou committest breach,

And dost her saints from Salem’s church beguile;

And plan, ’tis said, to found in easy reach

A State where Antichrist himself may preach.

X.

“From such a State our blessed elders see

The church may, even here, the infection share;

And therefore have the Council made decree,

That to the wilderness thou shalt not fare;

But have their mandate hither sent by me,

That thou to Boston presently repair;—

Where waits a ship now ready for the sea,

To carry back thy heresy and thee.”

XI.

Williams replied, “Thy message is unkind,—

In sooth, I think it even somewhat rude;

The snow falls fast, and searching is the wind

And wildly howls through the benighted wood.

The path to Boston is a little blind,

Nor are my nerves in their robuster mood;—

My soul has seldom at her lot repined,—

But to submission now she’s disinclined.

XII.

“A voyage to England, and to start to-night

And brave the ocean at this season drear?

’Twould scantly give the hardy tar delight,

Much less my consort and these pledges dear.

Go, and the Council tell, that we’re not quite

In health to bear a trial so severe,—

That if we yield ’twill be to lawless might,

And not to their kind feelings or their right.”

XIII.

“Much do I grieve,” the elder then replied,

“To bear this answer to the Governor;

’Twill show that thou hast Church and State defied,

And will I ween make not a little stir;

And should a pinnace, on the morn espied

O’er yonder waters speeding, bring with her

A squad of soldiers, Underhill their guide,

Be not surprised, but—Williams, quell thy pride!”

XIV.

This said, he turned and hastily withdrew,

And all but Williams now were left in tears;

His wife, still comely, lost her blooming hue,

Her nature yielding to her rising fears;

A giddy whirling passed her senses through,

She almost heard the blazing musketeers,

And trembling to her couch retired to sigh,

And seek relief in prayer to God on high.

XV.

“O! for a friend,” still as he paced the floor,

Sire Williams cried, “a friend in my sore need,

To help me now some hidden way explore,

By which my glorious purpose may succeed;

But closed to-night is every cottage door;

Yet there is one who is a friend indeed,

Forever present to the meek and poor—

I will thy counsels, mighty Lord, implore.”

XVI.

Here dropt the friend of conscience on his knees,

And prayed, with hand and heart to Heaven upreared;

“O, thou, the God who parted Egypt’s seas,

And cloud or fire in Israel’s van appeared,

Send down thine angel now, if so it please,

That forth from Church within the State ensphered

He guide my steps, to where there yet may be

A Church not ruled by men, but ruled by Thee.”

XVII.

Our Father ceased.—The tempest roared around

With double fury at this moment drear,

The cottage trembled, and the very ground

Did seem to feel the element’s career;

With ice and snow the window-panes were bound,

Nor through their dimness could the earth appear,

And still in gusts the wind a passage found

Down the rude chimney with a roaring sound.

XVIII.

A voice divine it did to Williams seem;—

He sat awhile within himself retired,

Then seemed to rouse, as from a transient dream,

Just as the lamp’s last flickering ray expired;

Around the room soft falls a quivering beam,

Cast from the brands that on the hearth are fired;

The tempest lulls apace, until he seems

To hear from neighboring woods the panther’s screams.

XIX.

“But what is that?—a knocking?—and once more?

Some way-lost wanderer seeks a shelter here;

Ah, wretched man, amid the boisterous roar

Of snow and wind, thy sufferings are severe!”

He raised the bar that kept the outer door,

And with the snow-gust from the darkness drear,

A stranger entered, whose large garments bore

Proof of the storm in clinging snowflakes hoar.

XX.

Aged he seemed, and staff of length had he,

Which well would holy pilgrim have become,

But yet he sought, with quiet dignity

And easy step, the centre of the room;

Then by the glimmering light our Sire could see

His flowing beard, white as the lily’s bloom;

Age had his temples scored; but,—glancing free,

As from the imprint of a century,

XXI.

His eyes beamed youth; and such a solemn mien,

Joined with such majesty and graceful air,

Our Founder thought he ne’er before had seen

In mortal form; and at the offered chair

The stranger gently shook his brow serene,

And by the act revealed his long white hair,

As fell the fleecy covering from it clean,

Where down his shoulder hung its tresses sheen.

XXII.

And when he spake his voice was low and clear,

But yet so deeply thrilling in its tone,

The listening soul seemed rapt into a sphere

Where angels speak in music of their own.

“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 at morn into the forest drear.

XXIII.

“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 ‘What cheer! What cheer!’

Shall greet thine ears from Indian multitude,

Cast thou thine Anchor there, and trust in God.”

XXIV.

The stranger ceased, and gently past away,

Though Williams to retain him still was fain;

“The night was dark, and wild the tempest’s sway,

And lone the desert,” but ’twas all in vain;

He only in soft accents seemed to say,

“Perchance I may behold thee yet again,

What time thy day shall more auspicious be,

And hope shall turn to joy in victory.”

XXV.

The stranger past, and Williams, by the fire,

Long mused on this mysterious event:

Was it some seraph, robed in man’s attire,

Come down to urge and hallow his intent?—

To counsel—kindle—and his breast inspire

With words of high prophetic sentiment?

Or had he dreamed and in his mind, as clear

As if in corporal presence, seen the seer?

XXVI.

’Twas strange—mysterious! Yet, if dream it were,

’Twas such as chosen men of old had known,

When Jacob saw the heaven-ascending stair,

And Joseph hoarded for the dearth foreshown.

Ah! did the Omniscient hear his earnest prayer,

And did e’en Heaven the glorious project own!

Then would he, by the morrow’s earliest ray,

Unto the distant forest make his way.

XXVII.

He sought for rest, but feverous was his plight

For peaceful and refreshing sleep, I trow;

Still mused he on the morrow’s toilsome flight,

Through unknown wilds and trackless wastes of snow;

How to elude the persecutor’s sight,

Or shun the eager quest of following foe,

Tasked his invention with no labor light—

And long, and slow, and lagging was the night.

XXVIII.

And if by fits came intervening sleep,

Through deserts wild and rugged roved his soul,

Here rose the rock—there sunk the headlong steep,

And fiercely round him seemed the storm to howl;

The while from sheltered glen his foes would peep

With taunts and jeers, and with revilings foul

Scoff at his efforts; and their clamors deep

Came mingled with that awful tempest’s sweep.

XXIX.

Morn came at last; and by the dawning day,

Our Founder rose his secret flight to take;

His wife and infant still in slumber lay;—

And shall he now that blissful slumber break?

Oh, yes, for he believes that trials may,

Within the mind, its mightier powers awake,

And that the storms, which gloom the pilgrim’s way,

Prepare the soul for her eternal day.

XXX.

“Mary!” (she woke) “prepare the meet attire,

My pocket-compass and my mantle strong,

My flint and steel to yield the needful fire,

Food for a week, if that be not too long;

My hatchet, too—its service I require

To clip my fuel desert wilds among;

With these I go to found, in forests drear,

A State where none shall persecution fear.”

XXXI.

“What! goest thou, Roger, in this chilling storm?

Wait! wait at least until its rage is o’er;

Its wrath will bar e’en persecution’s arm

From thee and me until it fails to roar.

Oh, what protecting hand from lurking harm

Will be thy shield by night?—What friendly door

Will give thee refuge at the dire alarm

Of hungry wolves, and beasts in human form?”

XXXII.

“Oh cease, my Mary, cease!—Thou dost complain

That Heaven itself doth interpose to save,—

Doth wing this tempest’s fury to restrain

The quest of foes, and prompt my soul to brave

The desert’s perils, that I may maintain

The conscience free against who would enslave;—

Wait till the storm shall cease to sweep the plain,

And we are doomed to cross yon heaving main.”

XXXIII.

No more he said, for she in silence went

From place to place until her task was o’er;

Williams, the while, the fleeting moments spent

To scrawl a message to delay the more—

Aye, to mislead the beagles on the scent,

Till he could safely reach far wood or shore;

And, haply, hope its vain illusion lent

That friends might plead, and bigotry relent.

XXXIV.

Then he to Heaven his weeping spouse commends,

And craves its blessing on his purpose bold;—

Still Salem lies in sleep, and forth he wends

To breast the driving storm and chilling cold;

While the lone mother from the window sends

A look where all her aching heart is told;

Dimly she marks him as his course he bends

Across the fields, and toward the forest tends.

XXXV.

To show him parting, to the light she rears

His child, yet ignorant of human woe;

And soon its guileless silver voice she hears,

“O! where is father going in the snow?”

The tender accents start the mother’s tears,

“He does, my child, to barbarous red men go,

To seek protection from hard brethren here

For thee and me, and all to him that’s dear.”

XXXVI.

So forth he ventured;—even like the dove

That earliest from the window of the ark,

Went forth on venturous wings, to soar above

The world of waters heaving wild and dark

O’er sunken realms of death, the while she strove

Some high emergent mountain peak to mark,

Where she might rest, beyond the billow’s sweep,

And build herself a home amid the deep.

XXXVII.

The boundless forests now our Founder trod,

And due southwestwardly his course he took;

The lofty pines and cedars round him nod,—

Loud roars the tempest through the leafless oak;

The snow lies deep upon the frozen sod,

And still the storm’s descending torrents choke

The heavens above; and only fancy could,—

So dim the view,—conceive the solitude

XXXVIII.

Of the wide forests that before him lay:

His ever steady onward pace alone

Told that from home he lengthened yet his way,

While the same forms—the same drear hollow moan,

Seemed ever round him lingering to stay,

And every step of progress to disown;

As with all sail the bark may breast the tide,

Nor yet advance, but rather backward glide.

XXXIX.

Above his head the branches writhe and bend,

Or in the mingled wreck their ruin flies;

The storm redoubles, and the whirlwinds blend

The rising snow-drift with descending skies:

And oft the crags a friendly shelter lend

His breathless bosom, and his sightless eyes;

But, when the transient gust its fury spends,

Amid the storm again his way he wends.

XL.

Still truly does his course the magnet keep—

No toils fatigue him, and no fears appal;

Oft turns he at the glimpse of swampy deep,

Or thicket dense, or crag abrupt and tall,

Or backward treads to shun the headlong steep,

Or pass above the tumbling waterfall;

Yet still rejoices when the torrent’s leap,

Or crag abrupt, or thicket dense, or swamp’s far sweep

XLI.

Assures him progress.—From gray morn till noon—

Hour after hour—from that drear noon until

The evening’s gathering darkness had begun

To clothe with deeper glooms the vale and hill,

Sire Williams journeyed in the forest lone;

And then night’s thickening shades began to fill

His soul with doubt—for shelter he had none—

And all the outstretched waste was clad with one

XLII.

Vast mantle hoar. And he began to hear,

At times, the fox’s bark, and the fierce howl

Of wolf, sometimes afar—sometimes so near,

That in the very glen they seemed to prowl

Where now he, wearied, paused—and then his ear

Started to note some shaggy monster’s growl,

That from his snow-clad rocky den did peer,

Shrunk with gaunt famine in that tempest drear,

XLIII.

And scenting human blood:—yea, and so nigh,

Thrice did our northern tiger seem to come,

He thought he heard the fagots crackling by,

And saw, through driven snow and twilight gloom,

Peer from the thickets his fierce burning eye,

Scanning his destined prey, and through the broom,

Thrice stealing on his ears, the whining cry

Swelled by degrees above the tempest high.

XLIV.

Wayworn he stood—and fast that stormy night

Was gathering round him over hill and dale;

He looked around and by the lingering light,

Found he had paused within a narrow vale;

On either hand a snow-clad rocky height

Ascended high, a shelter from the gale,

Whilst deep between them, in thick glooms bedight,

A swampy dingle lay before his sight.

XLV.

Through the white billows thither did he wade,

And deep within its solemn bosom trod;

Then on the snow with oft repeated tread

Hardened a flooring for his night’s abode;—

All there was calm, for the thick branches made

A screen above, and round him closely stood

The trunks of cedars and of pines arrayed,—

To the rude tempest a firm barricade.

XLVI.

And now his hatchet, with resounding stroke,

Hewed down the boscage that around him rose,

And of dry pine the brittle branches broke,

To yield him fuel for the night’s repose:

The gathered heap an ample store bespoke;

He smites the steel—the tinder brightly glows;

Fired by the match forth burst the kindling flame,

And light upon night’s seated darkness came.

XLVII.

High branched the pines, and far the colonnade

Of tapering trunks stood glimmering through the glen;

And then rejoiced he in that lonely glade

So far away from persecuting men,

That he might break of honesty the bread,

And blessing crave in his own way again;—

Of up-piled brush a seat and board he made,

Spread his plain fare, and piously he prayed.

XLVIII.

“Father of mercies! thou the wanderer’s guide

In this dire storm along the howling waste,

Thanks for the shelter thou dost here provide,

Thanks for the mercies of the day that’s past;

Thanks for the frugal fare thou hast supplied;

And O! may still thy tender mercies last;

And may thy light on every falsehood shine,

Till man’s freed spirit owns no law but thine!”

XLIX.

Our father ceased, and with keen relish he

Refreshed his wearied frame in that lone dell;

Ah! little can his far posterity

Conceive the pleasures of that frugal meal;

For naught he knew of lavish luxury,

And toil and fast had done their office well;

No costliest viands culled from land and sea

Could half so sweet to pampered palates be.

L.

His hunger sated with his simple fare,

He would, in weariness, have sought repose;

But at the kindling blaze, heard wide and far,

The howlings drear of forest monsters rose;

And, lured around him by the vivid glare,

Came darkling with light foot along the snows

Whole packs of wolves, from their far mountain lair,

And the fierce cat, which scarce the blaze might scare.

LI.

Growling they come, and in dark groups they stand,

Show the white fang, and roll the brightening eye;

Till urged by famine’s rage, the shaggy band

Seemed even the flame’s bright terrors to defy;

Then mid the group he hurled the blazing brand;

Swift they disperse, and raise the scattered cry;

But, rallying soon, back to the siege they came,

And in their rage scarce faltered at the flame.

LII.

Yet Williams deemed that persecution took

A form in them less odious than in men;

He on their proper solitude had broke,—

Ay, and had trespassed on their native glen;

His human shape they scantly too might brook,

For it their enemy had ever been;

But bigot man to probe the conscience sought,

And scathed his brother for his secret thought.

LIII.

Oft he recruited now the sinking blaze—

His stock of fuel seemed too scant to last;

Yet, in the terror of the glittering rays,

Was now the anchor of his safety cast;

With utmost reach the boscage did he raze,

Or clipt the branches overhead that past;

And still the burning pyre at times would raise,

Or hurl the firebrand at the monster’s gaze.

LIV.

At length the groups a panic seemed to seize,

And soon he knew the terrifying cause;

For swelling slow beneath the arching trees,

Trilled the long whine the dreadful panther draws;

A sound that might the boldest bosom freeze;

’Twas followed by a drear and awful pause;

Naught marred the silence save the murmuring breeze,

And the far storm, like roar of distant seas.

LV.

Of all the dangerous monsters of the wood,

None did the hunter dread like panther dire,

For man and beast he fearlessly pursued;—

Whilst others shunned, he was allured by fire;

And Williams knew how perilous his mood,

And braced his nerves to battle with his ire;

Beside the rising blaze he firmly stood,

And every avenue of danger viewed.

LVI.

In God he trusted for deliverance,—

He thought of Daniel in the lion’s den;

He waited silent for the fierce advance,—

He heard the fagots break along the glen;

Another long-drawn yell, and the fierce glance

Of two bright burning eye-balls, looking then

Out of the darkness, did yet more enhance

The terrors of the menacing mischance.

LVII.

But at this moment from the darkness broke

A human voice, in Narraganset’s tongue;

“Neemat!” (my brother) in kind tone it spoke,

“How comes Awanux these drear wilds among?”

And at the accents the dark thickets shook,

And from them lightly the red hunter sprung,

And from his belt familiarly he took

And fired his calumet, and curled its smoke.

LVIII.

Then to our Founder passed the simple cheer,

In sign of friendship to a wandering man,

“Let not,” he said, “my brother quake with fear,

’Twas Waban’s cry at which the monsters ran.”

Williams received the pledge of faith sincere;

Yet warily his guest began to scan.

Tall did his straight and active form appear,

And armed but with the hunter’s simple gear.