Transcriber's note: Italic font is indicated by _underscores_.
WHAT CHEER
OR
ROGER WILLIAMS IN BANISHMENT
_A POEM_
BY JOB DURFEE
“And surely betweene my friends of the Bay and Plimouth, I was sorely
tost for fourteen weeks, in a bitter cold winter season, not knowing
what bed or bread did meane.”--_Roger Williams’s Letter to Mason._
REVISED AND EDITED
BY
THOMAS DURFEE
PROVIDENCE
PRESTON & ROUNDS
1896
Copyright, 1896,
By THOMAS DURFEE.
_Snow & Farnham, Printers,
Providence._
NOTICE.
The Editor owes it to the reader to say that, in preparing the
following poem for re-publication, he has ventured to omit some of
the stanzas and to make changes in others. The stanzas were omitted
because, in his opinion, they broke the continuity or retarded the
flow of the narration, slackening the reader’s interest, and could be
omitted with advantage to the poem. The changes have been mostly slight
and formal, and, when more extensive, have been made to modify (not the
meaning, but) only the expression; making it clearer or more direct, or
giving it an easier metrical movement.
PROVIDENCE, R. I.,
May, 1896.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION vii
WHAT CHEER 1
NOTES 177
APPENDIX 215
ADDENDA.
LIFE’S VOYAGE 221
HYMN BY TWILIGHT 223
REYNARD’S SOLILOQUY 224
A SUMMONS TO THE COUNTRY 225
INTRODUCTION.
TO THE REV. ROMEO ELTON,
PROFESSOR OF LANGUAGES IN BROWN UNIVERSITY.
What time, dear Elton, we were wont to rove
From classic Brown along fair Seekonk’s vale,
And, in the murmurs of his storied cove,
Hear barbarous voices still our Founder hail;
E’en then my bosom with young rapture hove
To give to deathless verse the exile’s tale;
And every ripple’s moan or breeze’s sigh
Brought back whole centuries as it murmured by.
But soon the transient dream of youth was gone,
And different labors to our lots were given;
You at the shrine of peace and glory shone,--
Sublime your toils, for still your theme was Heaven;
I, upon life’s tempestuous billows thrown,--
A little bark before the tempest driven,--
Strove for a time the surging tide to breast,
And up its rolling mountains sought for rest.
Wearied at length with the unceasing strife,
I gave my pinnace to the harbor’s lee,
And left that ocean, still with tempests rife,
To mad ambition’s heartless rivalry;
No longer venturing for exalted life,
(For storms and quicksands have no charms for me,)
I, in the listless labors of the swain,
Provoke no turmoil and awake no pain.
To drive the team afield and guide the plough,
Or lead the herds to graze the dewy mead,
Wakes not the glance of lynx-eyed rival now,
And makes no heart with disappointment bleed;
Once more I joy to see the rivers flow.
The lambkins sport, and brindled oxen feed,
And o’er the tranquil soul returns the dream,
Which once she cherished by fair Seekonk’s stream.
And when stern winter breathes the chilling storm,
And night comes down on earth in mantle hoar,
I guide the herds and flocks to shelter warm,
And sate their hunger from the gathered store;
Then round the cottage hearth the circle form
Of childhood lovelier than the vernal flower,
Partake its harmless glee and prattle gay,
And soothe my soul to tune the artless lay.
Thus were the numbers taught at first to flow,
Scarce conscious that they bore a tale along;
Beneath my hand still would the pages grow,--
They were not labor, but the joy of song;
Still every line would unsung beauties show
In Williams’ soul, and still the strain prolong;
Till, all in rapture with the theme sublime,
My thoughts spontaneous sought the embodying rhyme.
No man was he of heart with love confined,
With blessings only for his bosom friend,--
His glowing soul embraced the human kind,--
He toiled and suffered for earth’s farthest end.
Touched by the truths of his unyielding mind,
The human soul did her long bondage rend;
Stern Persecution paused--blushed--dropped the rod:
He strove like man, but conquered like a God.
And now, my Elton, as in hours of ease,
With aimless joy I filled this frail balloon,
So like blind impulse bids me trust the breeze,
And soar on dancing winds to fate unknown;
And be my lot whatever chance decrees--
Let gales propitious gently waft me on,
Or tempests dash far down oblivious night,--
Whate’er the goal, I tempt the heedless flight.
_Tiverton, R. I., September, 1832._
WHATCHEER.
CANTO FIRST.
[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.
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.
CANTO SECOND.
[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.