Читать книгу What Cheer; Or, Roger Williams in Banishment: A Poem - Job Durfee - Страница 9

LIV.

“He sees the strangers spreading far around,

And earth turn pale as fast their numbers grow,

And fiercely would he to the battle bound,

And for his country strike the deadly blow,

But that behind the Pequot’s yells resound,

And on his left the Nipnet bends the bow;

And even thus his hatchet scarcely sleeps,—

It dreams of Haup, and in its slumber leaps.

LV.

“But, brother, still Miantonomi is

A valiant Sachem—yea, and generous too,

And gray Canonicus is just and wise,

His hands are ever to his tongue most true;

If from their lands my brother’s smoke should rise,

Whate’er those Sachems promise, they will do;

But Waban still doth not his friend advise

To cross the Seekonk where their country lies.

LVI.

“Brother, attend and hear the reasons why;—

There at Mooshausick dwells a dark pawaw,

Who hates Awanux, doth his God defy,

And Chepian worships with the deepest awe;

He’ll give my brother’s town a cloudy sky,

And to his councils under-sachems draw;

E’en now he whets the Narraganset knife,

Points at our clan, and thirsts for human life.

LVII.

“Safer on Seekonk’s hither border may

My brother build, and wake his council blaze;

Clear are the meads—the trees are swept away

By mighty burnings in our fathers’ days.

There early verdure spring and flow’rets gay,

Long grows the grass, and thrifty is the maize;

And good old Massasoit’s sheltering wing

Will shield thy weakness from each harmful thing.”

LVIII.

“Brother, I thank thee,” said our Founder here,

“Oft have I seen thy chief on Plymouth’s shore;

I will to-morrow seek those meadows clear,

And thy fair Seekonk’s hither banks explore.

But will not Waban pass Namasket near,

Where oft that wise and good old Sagamore,

Brave Massasoit, spends the season drear?”

“He will, my brother”—“Then let Waban hear:

LIX.

“Tell thou that Sachem, generous and wise,

That Williams lingers in thy cabin low,

That he his children and his country flies,

To shun the anger of a Christian foe;

And that to him his pale friend lifts his eyes,

And asks protection.—Tell him that his woe

Springs from this thought, and from this thought alone,

God can be worshipped but as God is known.”

LX.

A pause ensued, and Waban silent sate;

Yet to himself his lips repeating were;

At length he answering broke the pause sedate,

“Waban remembers, and the talk will bear.”

Then he in silence fired his calumet,

And gave its vapors to the wigwam’s air,

Whilst Williams wrote, with stationery rude,

His first epistle from the lonely wood.

LXI.

’Twas on the inner bark stript from the pine,

Our Father penciled this epistle rare;

Two blazing pine-knots did his torches shine,

Two braided pallets formed his desk and chair;

He wrote his wife the brief familiar line,

How he had journeyed, and his roof now where;

And that poor Waban was his host benign,

And bade her cheer and gave him blankets fine.

LXII.

Then bade her send the Indian presents, bought

When first they suffered persecution’s thrall,—

The strings of wampum, and the scarlet coat,

The tinseled belt and jeweled coronal;

The pocket Bible, which his haste forgot,

For he had cheering hopes of Waban’s soul;

Then gave her solace to the bad unknown,

That God o’errules and still protects his own.

LXIII.

And to the hunter Williams now presents

The secret charge, with all directions meet;

For Waban means to take his journey hence

Ere dawns the day upon his lone retreat;

And then once more did sleep our Founder’s sense

And knowledge steal away till morn complete;

When he awoke and found his host was gone,

The lodge all silent, and himself alone.

LXIV.

His fast he broke with the accustomed prayer,

And trimmed him for his walk to Seekonk’s side;

Calm was the morn, and pure the winter air,

As from the wigwam forth our Founder hied;

So tall the pines—so thick the branches were,

That, through their screens, the heavens were scarce espied;

But melting snows and dripping foliage prove

The South blows warmer in the fields above.

LXV.

Now from the swamp to upland woods he past,

Where leafless boughs branched thinner overhead,

And saw the welkin by no cloud o’ercast,

And felt the settled snows give firmer tread.

Now all was calm, no wild and thundering blast

Mixed earth with heaven, as through the boughs it sped;

And far as eye the boundless forest traced,

Glimmered the snow and stretched the lonely waste.

LXVI.

Onward he went, the magnet still his guide,

And through the wood his course due westward took;

Across his path, with antlers branching wide,

The red deer often from the thicket broke;

The timid partridge, at his rapid stride,

On whirring wings the sheltering bush forsook,

And the wild turkey foot and pinion plied,

Or from her lofty bough uncouthly cried.

LXVII.

At last a sound like murmurs from the shore

Of far-off ocean, when the storm is bound,

Grows on his ear, increasing more and more

As he advances, till the woods resound

And seem to tremble with the constant roar

Of many waters—Ay, the very ground

Beneath him quivers,—and, through arching trees

Bright glimmering and gliding on, he sees

LXVIII.

The river flowing to its dizzy steep

’Twixt fringing forests, from so far as sight

Can track its course, and, rushing, oversweep

The rocky precipice all frothy white,

With noise like thunder in its headlong leap,

And springing sun-bows o’er its showery flight,

And bursting into foam, tumultuous go

Down the deep chasm, to smoke and boil below.

LXIX.

Thence, hurrying onward through the narrow bound

Of banks precipitous, its torrents go,

Till by the jutting cliffs half wheeling round,

They pass from sight among the hills below.

There paused our Father, ravished with the sound

Of the wild waters, and their rapid flow,

And there, alone, rejoiced that he had found

Thy Falls, Pawtucket, and where Seekonk wound.

LXX.

And as he dallied on its margin still,

His restless thought did on the future pause:

Here might his children drive the busy mill,

Here whirl the stones, here clash the riving saws;

But little did he think the torrent’s will

Would ever yield so far to human laws,

As from the maid the spindle to receive

And spin for her, and her fair raiment weave.

LXXI.

Reluctantly he left the scene, and fast

Down Seekonk’s eastern bank pursued his way,

Seeking for Waban’s meads; yet often cast

His glances o’er the river, where the gray

Primeval giants, meet for keel or mast,

Stood, towering and distinct, in proud array;

And wore to his presaging eyes the air

Of lofty ships and stately mansions fair.

LXXII.

Still onward, by the eastern bank he sped;

Here stretched the thicket deep, there swampy fen,

Here sunk the vale, there rose the hillock’s head;

Oaks crowned the mound, and cedars gloomed the glen,

Where’er he moved;—at length his footsteps led

Where a bright fountain, sparkling like a gem,

Burst from the caverned cliff, and, glittering, wound

Its copious streamlet, with a murmuring sound,

LXXIII.

Far down the glade; and groves of cedars green,

With woven branches on the winter side,

Repelled the northern storm, whilst clear and sheen,

Crisped by its pebbly bed, the glancing tide

Gleamed in the sun, or darkened where the screen

Of boughs o’erhung its music-murmuring glide;—

It laughed along;—and its broad Southern glade

Was bordered deep by woods of massy shade.

LXXIV.

Charmed with the scene, our sire explored the place,

And penetrated deep the thickets round;

At length his vision opened on a space

Level and broad, and stretching without bound

Southward afar; nor rose o’er all its face

A tree, or shrub, or rock, or swelling mound;

Yet, in large herds dotting the snows, appear,

With antic gambols, the far bounding deer;

LXXV.

And, further down, the Narraganset flood,

Unfurrowed yet by keel—its fretted blue

With isles begemmed, and skirted by the wood

Of far Coweset,—opens on his view;

So long he had beneath the forest trod,

That, when the prospect on his vision grew,

His soul as from a prison seemed to fly

And range in thought through an immensity.

LXXVI.

Raptured he paused.—Here then was Waban’s mead;

In yonder little glen, the fountain by,

He’d rear his shelter—here his flocks should feed,

Cropping the grass beneath the summer sky;

There by his cot he’d sow the foodful seed,

And round his garden raise a paling high;

And there at twilight, should his herds be seen,

Following the tinkling bell from pastures green.

LXXVII.

Ay, here, in fancy, did he almost see

A lovely hamlet in the future blest,

Where Christians all might mutually agree

To leave their God to judge the human breast;

A place of refuge whitherto might flee

The hapless exile for his faith opprest,

And find his lately trammelled conscience free,

And for the scourge and gibbet—charity.

LXXVIII.

He thought he saw the various spires ascending

Of many churches, all of different kind,

And heard the Sabbath bells harmonious blending

Their calls to worshippers of various mind;

And saw the people as harmonious wending

To several worships, as their faith inclined;

And felt that Deity might bend the ear,

Such harmony from various chords to hear.

LXXIX.

But still across his mind a shadow came—

A doubt that seemed a superstitious fear;

For yet no Indian throng, with loud acclaim,

Had bid the welcome of Whatcheer! Whatcheer!

Till when he should be tossed;—as did proclaim

That nameless stranger—that mysterious seer;—

But from Haup’s Sachem he a grant will gain;

Such were best welcome from that Sachem’s train.

LXXX.

Full of this thought, he turned at close of day,

And gained the humble lodge as night came down;

And he could scarcely brook the short delay,

Till Waban, coming from the white man’s town,

Should from Namasket, where the Sachem lay,

The cheering welcome bring, or blasting frown;

For thou, Soul-Liberty, couldst then no more

Than build thy hopes on that rude sagamore.