Читать книгу What Cheer; Or, Roger Williams in Banishment: A Poem - Job Durfee - Страница 8

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[Scenes. The Wigwam—The Wilderness—Pawtucket Falls—Seekonk’s Meads—The Wigwam.]

It was the morning of a Sabbath day,

When Williams rose to Waban’s simple cheer,

But knew not where, save that vast forests lay

Betwixt his home and the lone wigwam here;

Yet ’twas a place of peace; no thing of clay,

’Twixt God and conscience in communion near,

Came, with profane and impious control,

To check the heavenward wanderings of his soul.

II.

God loves the wilderness; in deserts lone,

Where all is silent, where no living thing

Mars the hushed solitudes, where Heaven looks down,

And Earth looks up, each as if marvelling

That aught should be; and, through the vast unknown,

Thought-breathing silence seems as uttering

The present God,—there does He rear his throne,

And, tranced in boundless thoughts, the soul doth own

III.

And feel his strength within.—This day once more,

In place thus sacred, did our Founder keep;

None, save the Deity he bent before,

Marked the devotions of his feelings deep.

None, do I say? yet there was Waban poor;

Alas! his mind in utter night did sleep;

He saw our Founder at his earnest prayer,

But knew not what his supplications were.

IV.

Yet earnestly the pious man besought,

That Heaven would deign to shed the Gospel light

On the kind pagan’s soul, as yet untaught

Save in the dreams of her primordial night;

And much he prayed, that to the truth when brought,—

Cleansed of his sins in garments pure and white,—

He might subdue the fierceness of his clan,

And gain man refuge from intolerant man.

V.

Williams the task of goodness now essayed,

To win the wanderer to a worship new;

The utter darkness that his soul arrayed,

Concealed her workings from our Founder’s view,

Save when some question, rare and strange, betrayed

His dream-bewildered glimpses of the true.—

Long was the task; and Williams back began,

At earth’s creation and the fall of man.

VI.

He told how God from nothing formed the earth,

And gave each creature shape surpassing fair;

How He in Eden, at their happy birth,

Placed with His blessing the first human pair;

How, disobeying, they were driven forth,

And they, and theirs, consigned to sad despair,

Until, incarnate, God in pity gave

Himself for man, and made it just to save.

VII.

He then told how the blessed martyrs bore

The chains of dungeons, and the fagot’s flame,

Glad that their sufferings might attest the more

Their perfect faith in their Redeemer’s name;

How His disciples past from shore to shore,

Salvation’s joyful tidings to proclaim;

How hither now they brought the Gospel’s light

To cheer the red men wrapt in pagan night.

VIII.

Waban attentive listened to the strain,

And at its close for long in silence sate;

His visage did a graver cast attain

And all his heart’s deep feelings indicate.

At length he uttered thus the mental train:—

“Weak is my soul, and dark is her estate!

No book has she to tell of Manit high,

Except this outstretched earth and starry sky.

IX.

“Great news Awanux brings the red men here—

News that their legends old doth much excel;

Yet give to Waban the attentive ear,

And the traditions of his sires he’ll tell.

From days afar, down many a rolling year—

Down to thy brothers red—their fathers’ tale

Comes to inform them, in their mortal state,

What powers they should revere—what deprecate.”

X.

Here Waban paused, and sitting mused a space,

As pondering gravely on the mighty theme;

Deep thought was graven on his earnest face,

And still his groping memory did seem

To gather up the legends of his race.

At length he roused, as from a passing dream,

And from his mat, majestically slow

Rearing his form, began in accents low:

XI.

“Brother, that time is distant—far away,

When Heaven or Earth or living thing was not,

Save our great God, Cawtantowit, who lay

Extended through immensity, where naught

But shoreless waters were—and dead were they;

No living thing did on their bosom float,

And silentness the boundless space did fill;

For the Great Spirit slept—and all was still.

XII.

“But though he slept, yet, as the human soul

To this small frame, his being did pervade

The universal space, and ruled the whole;

E’en as the soul, when in deep slumber laid,

Doth her wild dreams and fantasies control,

And give them action, color, shape and shade

Just as she wills. But the Great Spirit broke

His sleep at last, and all the boundless shook.

XIII.

“In a vast eagle’s form embodied, He

Did o’er the deep on outstretched pinions spring;

Fire in his eye lit all immensity,

Whilst his majestically gliding wing

Trembled hoarse thunders to the shuddering sea;

And, through their utmost limit quivering,

The conscious waters felt their Manittoo,

And life, at once, their deepest regions knew.

XIV.

“The mountain whale came spouting from below,

The porpoise plunged along the foaming main,

The smaller fry in sporting myriads go,

With glancing backs above the liquid plain;

Yet still refused her giant form to show—

Ay, sullenly below did yet remain

Earth-bearing Tortoise, the Unamis vast,

And o’er her still the loftly billows past.

XV.

“Then great Cawtantowit in his anger spoke,

And from his flaming eyes the lightnings past,

And from his wings the tenfold thunders broke.

The sullen Tortoise heard his words at last—

And slowly she her rocky grasp forsook,

And her huge back of woods and mountains vast

From the far depths tow’rd upper light began

Slowly to heave.—The affrighted waters ran

XVI.

“Hither and thither, tumultous and far;

But still Unamis, heaving from below

The full formed earth, first, through the waves did rear

The fast sky-climbing Alleghany’s brow,

Dark, huge and craggy; from its summits bare

The rolling billows fell, and rising now,

All its broad forest to the breezy air

Came out of Ocean, and, from verdure fair,

XVII.

“Shed the salt showers. Far o’er the deep,

Hills after hills still lift their clustered trees,

Wild down the rising slopes the waters leap,

Then from the up-surging plain the ocean flees,

Till lifted from the flood, in vale and steep

And rock, and forest waving to the breeze,

Earth, on the Tortoise borne, frowned ocean o’er,

And spurned the billows from her thundering shore.

XVIII.

“But great Cawtantowit, on his pinions still,

O’er the lone earth majestically sprung,

And whispered to the mountain, vale and hill,

And with new life the teeming regions rung;

The feathered songsters tune their carols shrill,

Herds upon herds the plain and mountain throng;

In the still pools the cunning beavers toil,

And the armed seseks[5] their strong folds uncoil.

[5] Sesek—rattlesnake.

XIX.

“Yet man was not.—Then great Cawtantowit spoke

To the hard mountain crags and called for man:

And sculptured, breathing, from the cleaving rock,

Sprang the armed warrior, and a strife began

With living things.—Hard as his native block,

Was his stone heart, and through it ran

Blood cold as ice—and the Great Spirit struck

This cruel man, and him to atoms broke.

XX.

“Then He the oak, of fibre hard and fine,

With the first red man’s soul and form endowed,

And woman made he of the tapering pine,

Which ’neath that oak in peaceful beauty bowed;

She on the red man’s bosom did recline,

Like the bright rainbow on the thunder-cloud.

And the Great Spirit saw his work divine,

And on the pair let fall His smile benign.

XXI.

“He gave them all these forests far and near,

The forms that fly, and those that creeping go,

The healthful fountains, and the rivers clear,

And all the broods that sport the waves below;

Then gave he man the swiftness of the deer,

And armed his hands with arrows and the bow,

And bade him shelter still his consort dear,

And tread his large domain without a peer.

XXII.

“Then did he send Yotaanit on high,

(For Gods he fashioned as he formed the land,)

And bade him star with fires the azure sky,

And kindle the round blaze of Keesuckquand;

And then, to cheer by night the hunter’s eye,

Bright Nanapaushat sprung from Wamponand;

Thus with his will the manittoos comply,

And every region knows its deity.[6]

[6] See note.

XXIII.

“All things thus were formed from what was good,

And the foul refuse every evil had;

But it had felt the influence of the God,

(How should it not?) and a black demon, sad

And stern and cruel, loving strife and blood,

Filled with all malice, and with fury mad,

Sprang into life:—such was fell Chepian’s birth,

The hate of gods, and terror of the earth.

XXIV.

“Then to the south-west the Great Spirit flew,

Whence the soft breezes of the summer come,

And from the depths Sowaniu’s[7] island drew,

And bade its fields with lasting verdure bloom.

O’er it he bent another welkin blue,

Which never night nor clouds nor tempests gloom,

And kindled suns the lofty arches through,

And bade them shine with glory ever new.

[7] Sowaniu—here of three syllables—was written by Williams, “Sowwainiu.”

XXV.

“When thus Cawtantowit had finished all,

No more did he on eagle’s pinions roam,

There did he limits to his works install,

And centre there his everlasting home;

There did he cast the eagle and recall

His pristine shape, and manit-man become;

There still he dwells, the all-pervading soul

Of men and manittoos—yea, of creation’s whole.

XXVI.

“All that is good does from Cawtantowit flow;

All that is evil Chepian doth supply;

Praying for good we to Cawtantowit bow,

And shunning evil we to Chepian cry;

To other manittoos we offerings owe,

Dwell they in mountain, flood, or lofty sky;

And oft they aid us when we hunting go,

Or in fierce battle rush upon the foe.

XXVII.

“And manittoos, that never death shall fear,

Do likewise in this mortal form abide;

What else, my brother, is there beating here?

What heaves this breast—what rolls its crimson tide?

Whilst, like Cawtantowit, doth the soul appear

To live through all and over all preside;

And when her mortal mansion here decays,

She to Sowaniu’s blessed island strays,

XXVIII.

“There aye to joy; if, whilst she dwelt with men,

She wisely counseled and did bravely fight,

Or watchful caught the beavers in the glen,

Or nimbly followed far the moose’s flight;

But if a sluggard and a coward, then

To rove all wretched in the glooms of night,

Misled by Chepian, a poor wandering ghost,—

In swamps and fens and bogs and brambles lost.

XXIX.

“And now, my brother, rightly worship we,

When to Cawtantowit we make our prayer?

Or when for help to Chepian we flee,

And pray that us from every harm he spare?

For every harm is all his own, we see,

And good Cawtantowit has ne’er a share—

Then why should not I Chepian sue to be

Much sparing of his harm to mine and me?”

XXX.

Williams made answer, “When red warriors brave

The fight’s dark tempest and for glory die,

Does Waban tremble whilst the battles rave,

And at the hurtling arrows wink his eye?

Or, basely cowering, does he mercy crave

Of the red hatchet o’er him lifted high?

Who prays to Chepian is a cringing slave,

And, dying, fills at last a coward’s grave.”

XXXI.

Strongly these words to Waban’s pride appealed;

Yet back upon him did the memory rush

Of by-gone ages, and of many a field

Where fought his fathers, who with victory flush,

Not to Cawtantowit, but to Chepian kneeled,

And thanked his aid.—They cowards! and the blush,

That in their worship fear should seem revealed,

Was scantly by his tawny hue concealed.

XXXII.

At last he said, “My brother doubtless knows—

He has a book which his Great Spirit wrote:

Brave were my fathers, yet did they repose

With hope in Chepian, and his aid besought

When forth they marched to shed the blood of foes;

But maybe they, like Waban, never thought

That they were cowards, when they fiercely prayed

That Evil One to give their vengeance aid.

XXXIII.

“Waban will think, and should it seem like fear—

Waban ne’er shrunk when round him battle roared,

And at the stake when bound, his torturers near,

Among the clouds thy brother’s spirit soared

And scorned her foes—but should it seem like fear

To worship Chepian, whom his sires adored,

He will no more be that dread demon’s slave;

For ne’er will Waban fill a coward’s grave.”

XXXIV.

Thus in grave converse did they pass the day,

Till night returning brought them slumbers sweet;

And, with the morrow, shone the sun’s broad ray

Serenely down on Waban’s lone retreat.

Then Williams might have journeyed on his way,

But doubt and darkness still restrained his feet;

And so with Waban made he further stay

To learn about the tribes that round him lay.

XXXV.

Hence may he secretly to Salem write,

And friends approving, still his plans arrange;

For Waban soon will bear his peltry light

To Salem’s mart, and there may interchange

The mute epistles, meant for friendly sight,—

Unseen of eyes inimical or strange,

Lest rumor of them reach the bigot’s ear,

And persecution find him even here.

XXXVI.

Among the several tribes around to go,

And sound the feelings of each different clan,

Seemed not unmeet; but little did he know

How they might treat a pale-faced outlawed man,

Friendless and homeless, wandering to and fro,

And flying from his own white brethren’s ban;

They, for a price, might strike the fatal blow,

Or bear him captive to his ruthless foe.

XXXVII.

Better it were, so deemed our Father well,

To seek and win the savage by degrees,

Since to his lot the dangerous duty fell,

(For such did seem high Heaven’s all-wise decrees),

To found unarmed a State where rung the yell

Of barbarous nations on the midnight breeze;

Against the scalping-knife with no defence

Or safeguard but his heart’s benevolence.

XXXVIII.

With only this, his buckler and his brand—

This, yet unproved and doubted by the best,—

In cheerless wilds, mid many a savage band,

Spurned from his home, by Christian men opprest,

Must he the warrior’s weapon turn, his hand

Unnerve, and gently o’er his rugged breast

Gain mastery. The panther by the hare

Must be approached and softened in his lair.

XXXIX.

That night, returning from the accustomed pool,

Came Waban laden with the beavers’ spoils,

And joy seemed dancing in his very soul

As he displayed the produce of his toils;

Much he rejoiced, and Williams heard the whole,—

How long he watched, how many were his foils;

Then how the cunning beasts were captured all,

As through the fractured ice they sought to crawl.

XL.

“Bravely,” said Williams, “has my brother done,

No more the cunning wights will mock his skill.

Waban is rich; will he not hie him soon

To the pale wigwams, and his girdle fill

With the bright wampum?—Ere to-morrow’s sun

Shall hide behind the crest of yonder hill,

Waban may gain the pale-faced stranger’s town,

And in his brother’s wigwam sit him down.”

XLI.

“The hunter goes,” said Waban in reply;

Then fired his calumet and curled its smoke,

And silent sate in all the dignity

Which conscious worth can give the human look.

But when the fragrant clouds to mount on high

Had ceased, he from the bowl the embers shook,

And spread on earth the brown deer’s rustling hide,

Expanding to the eye its naked side.

XLII.

Then thus he spake: “My brother doth require

Waban to show where neighboring Sachems reign;—

Doubtless he seeks to light his council fire

Within some good and valiant chief’s domain,

That he may shun the persecutor’s ire,

And pray his God without the fear of men.

On Waban’s words my brother may repose,

Whilst these far feet imprint the distant snows.”

XLIII.

Then from the hearth a quenchéd brand he took,

And on the skin traced many a curving line;

Here rolled the river, there the winding brook,

Here rose the hills, and there the vales decline,

Here spreads the bay, and there the ocean broke,

Along red Waban’s map of rude design.

The work now finished, he to Williams spoke,

“Here, brother, on the red man’s country look.

XLIV.

“Here’s Waban’s lodge, thou seest it smokes between

Dark rolling Seekonk and Cohannet’s wave;[8]

Both floods on-flowing through their borders green,

In Narraganset’s basin find their grave.

O’er all the country ’twixt those waters sheen

Reigns Massasoit, Sachem good and brave;

Yet he has subject Keenomps far and near,

Who bring him tribute of the slaughtered deer,

[8] Cohannet, the Indian name for Taunton, is here applied to the river.

XLV.

“And bend his battle bow.—Strong is he now,

But has been stronger. Ere dark pestilence

Devoured his warriors—laid his hundreds low,—

That Sachem’s war-whoop roused to his defence

Three thousand bow-men; and he still can show

A mighty force, whene’er the kindling sense

Of common wrong does in the bosom glow,

And prompts to battle with the offending foe.

XLVI.

“His highest chief is Corbitant the stern;

He bears a fox’s head and panther’s heart,

He ’gainst Awanux does in secret turn,

Sharps his keen knife, and points his thirsty dart;

His council fires in Mattapoiset[9] burn,

Of Pokanoket’s woods his licensed part.

Cruel he is, and terrible his train—

Light not your fires within that wolf’s domain.

[9] Mattapoiset, now Swansey.

XLVII.

“Here, tow’rd the winter, where the fountains feed

These rolling rivers, do the Nipnets dwell;

They Massasoit bring the skin and bead,

And rush to war when rings his battle yell;

Valiant are they, yet oft their children bleed,

When the far West sends down her Maquas fell;

Warriors who hungry on their victims steal,

And make of human flesh a dreadful meal.

XLVIII.

“Here lies Namasket tow’rd the rising sun;

There Massasoit spends his seasons cold;

The warriors there are led by Annawan,

Of open hand and of a bosom bold;

Here farther down, Cohannet’s banks upon,

Spreads broad Pocasset, strong Apannow’s hold;

The bowmen there tread Massasoit’s land,

E’en to Seconnet’s billow-beaten strand.

XLIX.

“Still tow’rd the rising sun might Waban show

And count each tribe, and each brave Keenomp name;

But then his brother does not wish to go

Nearer the pale-face and the fagot’s flame;

But rather tow’rd the tomahawk and bow,

And would the friendship of the red man claim:

Therefore will Waban, on the western shores,

Count Narraganset’s men and sagamores.

L.

“Two mighty chiefs—one cautious, wise and old,

One young and strong, and terrible in fight—

All Narraganset and Coweset hold;

One lodge they build, one council fire they light;

One sways in peace, and one in battle bold;

Five thousand warriors give their arrows flight;

This is Miantonomi, strong and brave,

And that Canonicus, his uncle grave.[10]

[10] See note.

LI.

“Dark rolling Seekonk does their realm divide

From Pokanoket, Massasoit’s reign;

Thence sweeping down the bay, their forests wide

Spread their dark foliage to the billowy main;

Thence tow’rd the setting sun by ocean’s side,

Stretches their realm to where the rebel train,

Ruled by grim Uncas, with their hatchets dyed

In brother’s blood, on Pequot stream abide.[11]

[11] See note.

LII.

“Canonicus is as the beaver wise,

Miantonomi as the panther bold;

But tow’rd the faces pale their watchful eyes

Are oft in awful thinking silence rolled;

And often in their heaving bosoms rise

Thoughts that to none but Keenomps they have told;

They seem two buffaloes the herds that lead,

Scenting the hunters gathering round their mead.

LIII.

“When first his fire Awanux kindled here,

Haup’s[12] chief was weak, and broken was his heart;

Disease had swept his warriors far and near,

And at his breast looked Narraganset’s dart;

Awanux gave him strength, and with strange fear

Did M’antonomi at the big guns start;

He dropt his hatchet; but his hate remains,

And only counsel wise his wrath restrains.

[12] Haup, or Mount Hope, the summer residence of Massasoit.