Читать книгу What Cheer; Or, Roger Williams in Banishment: A Poem - Job Durfee - Страница 7

LIX.

The bear’s dark fur loose o’er his shoulders cast,

His hand did only at the breast confine,

The wampum wreath, which round his forehead past,

Did with the flame’s reflected brightness shine;

The beaver’s girdle closely swathed his waist;

It’s skirts hung low, all trimm’d with ’broidery fine;

The well-formed ankles the close gaiters bound,

With furs befringed, and starred with tinsel round.

LX.

Nature’s kind feelings did his visage grace;

His gently arching brow was shorn all bare,

And the slight smile now fading from his face,

The aspect left of serious goodness there;

Though bright his eyes beneath his forehead’s base,

They rather seemed to smile than fiercely glare;

And the free dignity of Waban’s race

Seemed moving in his limbs and breathing from his face.

LXI.

Williams the pledge of friendship now returned,

And thanks o’erflowing to the hunter gave:

“From the Great Spirit sure my brother learned

His brother’s danger, when he came to save.”

“Waban,” he answered, “from his lodge discerned

A stranger’s fire, and heard the monsters rave.

Waban has long within these wilds sojourned;

But ne’er before has pale Awanux burned

LXII.

“His fire within this unfrequented glade.

Wanders my brother from his homeward way?

The storm is thick, he surely may have strayed;

Or has he hunted through the weary day

The rapid moose; or in this lonely shade

Seeks he to trap the deer, or make essay

To catch the wily beavers, who have made

Their cunning wigwams in the river’s bed?”

LXIII.

“’Twere hard to tell my brother of the woods

What cause has forced his pale-faced brother here,

The red and white men have their different moods,

And Narraganset’s tongue lacks terms, I fear,

To tell the strifes among white multitudes—

Strifes yet unknown within these forests drear,

Where undisturbed ye worship various gods,

And persecution leave to white abodes.

LXIV.

“Let it suffice, (for weary is the night,)

That late across the mighty lake I came,

Seeking protection here of brethren white,

From those pale chiefs who had, with scourge and flame,

Driven them as me o’er sea in dangerous flight;—

Our wrongs, as our offenses, were the same:

God we had worshipped as to us seemed right,

And roused the vengeance of our men of might.

LXV.

“My brethren then had persecution fled,

And much I hoped with them a home to find;

But to our common God whene’er we prayed,

My honest worship did not suit their mind;

It differed greatly from their own, they said;

Their anger kindled, and, with speech unkind,

They drove me from my family and home,

An exile in this dreadful storm to roam.

LXVI.

“And now, my brother, through the wilds I go,

To seek some far—some lone sequestered glen—

Where burning fagot nevermore shall glow,

Fired by the wrath of persecuting men;

Where all may worship, as their gods they know,

Or conscience lights and leads their varying ken;—

Where ages after ages still may bow,

And from free hearts free orisons may flow.”

LXVII.

Waban a while mused on our Founder’s tale,

And silent sate in meditative mood;

For much he wondered why his brothers pale

For differing worship sought their kindred’s blood.

At last he thought that they must surely fail

To know the Great Spirit as a father good,

Or Chepian[1] was their god, and had inclined

Them to indulge a fell and cruel mind.

[1] The name of the Indian devil.

LXVIII.

Then pity blended with his wonder grew;

Here was a victim of that Evil One,

Who from him and his angry servants flew

To seek a shelter in the forest lone.

“Brother,” he said, “thy brother much doth rue

(Hearing thy tales,) that thou art forced to shun

Thy well-framed wigwam—thy familiar fire,

And sleep so far amid this tempest dire.

LXIX.

“Now, brother, hear, what Waban has to say:

The night is cold, and fast the snows descend;

Still round thy sleep will howl the beasts of prey;—

Will not my brother to my wigwam wend?

It smokes well-sheltered and not far away;

There may my brother this drear season spend,

And shun the wrath of Chepian’s angry men,

Until Sowaniu’s breezes scatter flowers again.

LXX.

“Right welcome to the red man’s lodge shall be

His pale-faced brother, safe from Sachems pale;

Waban’s nausamp and venison shall be free

When hunger craves, and, when his store shall fail,

His dart is true, and swift and far will he

Pursue the bounding deer o’er hill and dale;—

When melts the snow we may together raise,

On Seekonk’s banks, our common field of maize.”

LXXI.

Williams replied, “My brother sure is kind,

But his red friends are doubtless with him here;

And they may teach my kindred, left behind,

To track my footsteps through the forest drear;—

To journey homeward I have little mind;

My course is with the sun to wilds less near,

Where I would form, if granted the domain,

A tribe which never should the soul enchain.”

LXXII.

“Alone is Waban,” was the sad reply;

“His wife and child have to that country gone

Where go our spirits when our bodies die,

And left thy brother in his lodge alone:

He goes by day to catch the beavers shy,

And sits by night in his still house to moan,

And much ’twould please him should the wanderer come,

And tell him where the loved ones’ spirits roam.”

LXXIII.

“Brother, I thank thee—thou art kind indeed,”

Our Founder said—“and with thee I will go;

Would that my brethren of the Christian creed

Did half thy charity and goodness know!

Waban, thou wilt thy brother’s purpose speed,

And all the boundaries of those countries show

Which lie adjoining Narraganset’s bay,

And name the chiefs, and count the tribes they sway.”

LXXIV.

“Waban can do it”—was the quick reply,

And Williams followed him, as fast he led

Through bush and brake with blazing brand held high;

The wolves around them gathered as they sped;

But Waban often raised the mimic cry

Of the fierce panther, and as oft they fled;

Until the path descending swiftly steep,

Led to his wigwam in the valley deep.

LXXV.

Then Williams noted, through the deepest night,

The sparkles rising from the roof unseen,

And, by the glancing of the firebrand’s light,

Above him marked the thickening branches’ screen;

For denser here, and of a loftier height,

The pines and cedars arched their sombre green,

With boughs deprest beneath the burden hoar;

And further off did seem the tempest’s roar.

LXXVI.

An undressed deerskin closed the entrance rude

Of the frail mansion of our Founder’s friend;

“Brother,” he said, “this is my poor abode,

But thou art welcome—it will well defend

Thee from the bitter tempest,” and he showed

The open pass. Beneath its arch they bend:

From mid the room the blazing fagots sent

The smoke and sparkles through the vault’s low vent,

LXXVII.

And, shining round, did for the ceiling show

The braided mat of many colors made,—

Veiled here and there, where, hanging in a row,

The beavers’ hides their silvery coats displayed;

And here and there were antlers, from the brow

Of bounding buck, around the room arrayed;

And also, hung among the hunter’s gear,

The dusky haunches of the moose and deer.

LXXVIII.

Hard-by the blazing hearth, raised from the ground

Three braided pallets stood, with furs bespread,

Where once red Waban, wife and child had found

The humble settle, and still humbler bed;

But now, alas! beneath the grassy mound,

Two of the three sate with the silent dead;[2]

The wampum girdle, that his spouse once wore,

Gleamed on her garb of furs the settle o’er.

[2] The Indians bury their dead in a sitting posture.

LXXIX.

The room was warm, and plenteous the cheer

Which Waban then did to our Founder bring;

In trays the nocake,[3] and the joints of deer,

And in the gourd-shell water from the spring;

And, all the while, kept pouring in his ear

How he had pierced the wild duck on the wing;

And westward lately had the moose pursued

Afar, and struck him in Mooshausick’s wood.

[3] A corruption of the Indian Nokehick—parched meal.

LXXX.

Slightly our Founder tasted of the fare,

For toil and chill much more than hunger prest;

This Waban noted, and with tender care,

The vacant pallet showed, and urged him rest;

Waban he said, would still the fire repair,

And still in comfort keep his pale-faced guest,

“And may the Manittoo of dreams,” he said,

“The happiest visions on thy slumbers shed.

LXXXI.

“Upon this pallet she was wont to lay

Herself to sleep whose spirit now is gone;

And may that spirit to thy visions say

Where now she dwells, and where my little son;

Whether on that blest island far away,

O’er the blue hills beyond the setting sun,

They with their kindred joy, or nearer home,

Still lingering, wait until the father come.”

LXXXII.

Williams replied, that he would speak at morn

Of that far journey which the spirit takes;

And name the Guide, who never soul forlorn,

Whilst passing through death’s gloomy night, forsakes.

His brother, then, on fitting day in turn,

Would name the bounds, by rivers, bays, and lakes,

Of neighboring chiefs, and say what Sachems might

His mission threaten, or its hopes invite.

LXXXIII.

Our Founder slept; and on that night, I ween,

Deep was the slumber of that pallet low,

Calm were its dreams as was his breast serene—

Such sleep can persecutors never know;

He slept, until the dawning light was seen

Down through the dome to shine upon his brow;

Then Waban woke him to his simple cheer

Of the pure fount, nausamp,[4] and savory deer.

[4] The word samp is a corruption of the Indian nausamp, and has the same meaning.