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.
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.
CANTO THIRD.
[SCENES. The Wigwam--Massasoit and other Chiefs--The Wilderness--A
Night in the Wilderness--The Narraganset or Coweset Country--Coweset
Height.]
No pain is keener to the ardent mind,
Filled with sublime and glorious intents,
Than when strict judgment checks the impulse blind,
And bids to watch the pace of slow events
To time the action;--for it seems to bind
The ethereal soul upon a fire intense,
Lit by herself within the kindling breast,
Prompting to act, while she restrains to rest.
II.
Two nights had passed, and, Waban lingering still,
Williams began to doubt his steadfast faith;
Quick was his foot o’er forest, vale and hill,
His swerveless eyes aye keeping true his path.
Why does he tarry? and the doubts instil
Suspicions in our Sire of waking wrath
Against his purpose in the barbarous clan,
Whose fears e’en then on future dangers ran.
III.
But on the morrow’s morn, while Williams mused,--
Anxious and wondering at the long delay,--
The wigwam’s entrance, by the deer-skin closed,
Abruptly opened, and a warrior gay
Glided within it. To the sight unused
Of Keenomp trimmed as for the battle fray,
Williams, recoiling, gazed with fixed surprise
On the fierce savage and his fearful guise.
IV.
The eagle’s plumes waved round his hair of jet,
Whose crest-like lock played lightly o’er his head;
On breast and face the war-paints harshly met,
Down from his shoulders hung his blanket red,
With seeming blood his hatchet haft was wet,--
Its edge of death was by his girdle stayed;
Bright flashed his eyes, and, ready for the strife,
Gleamed in his hand the dreadful scalping-knife.
V.
He placed a packet, bound, in Williams’ hands,
And fired his pipe, and sitting, curled its smoke,
The while our Founder broke the hempen bands,
And gave the contents an exploring look.
There found he, answered, all his late commands
To Waban, ere the wigwam he forsook;
And from his wife a brief epistle too,
Which told her sorrows since their last adieu:
VI.
How came the messengers with arméd men
To search her mansion for “the heretic;”
How his escape provoked their wrath--and then
How they condemned him for his feigning sick;
But with the thought consoled themselves again,
That he had perished in the tempest thick;
God’s righteous retribution, setting free
Their Israel from his heinous heresy.
VII.
But, as he reads, the warrior starting cries,
“War! war! my brother.”--Williams drops his hand,
And at the voice perceives, in altered guise
Till now unknown, the generous Waban stand
Erect and tall, with fiercely flashing eyes,
The while he pressed the hatchet in its band;
“Brother, there’s war!” “With whom?” our Founder said;
“Have I not friends among my brothers red?”
VIII.
“Haup’s valiant Sachem is my brother’s friend,”
Red Waban answered; “and I come before
Him, and the train of Keenomps who attend
Him, coming here--our mightiest Sagamore--
To ask my brother that his aid he lend
’Gainst Narraganset’s hatchet stained with gore;
Miantonomi lifts it o’er his head,
Gives the loud whoop, and names our valiant dead.”
IX.
No time there was for Williams to reply
Ere near the lodge there rose a trampling sound,
And warriors entered, stained with every dye,
Crested and plumed, with--to their girdles bound--
The knife and hatchet; whilst the battle cry
Burst from the crowds that flocked the lodge around,
And lighted up, in every Keenomp’s eye
That stared within, a dreadful sympathy.
X.
Amid the train came Massasoit old,
But not too old for direst battle fray;
Strong was his arm as was his spirit bold;
His judgment, bettered by experience gray,
The wildest passions of his tribe controlled,
And checked their fury in its headlong way;
Still with the whites his peace he had maintained,
The terror of whose aid his foes restrained.
XI.
There too came Corbitant, austere of mood,
And Annawan, who saw, in after times,
Brave Metacom, and all of kindred blood,
Slain, or enslaved and sold to foreign climes;
And strong Appanow, of Pocasset’s wood,
And other chiefs of names unmeet for rhymes;
And round our Father, in the fearful trim
Of savage war, they gathered, wroth and grim.
XII.
Each fired his pipe, and seat in silence took;
Around the room a dreadful ring they made;--
Their eyes stared fiercely through the wreathing smoke,
And luridly their gaudy plumage played,
The while, obscured, they did scarce earthly look,
But seemed like fiends in their infernal shade;
And still the vapors rose and naught they spoke,
Till Massasoit thus the silence broke:
XIII.
“And is my brother here? What does he seek?
Tow’rd Wamponand, upon the passing wing,
A singing bird there went; its opening beak
Was by Namasket’s wigwam heard to sing
That thou art friendless, homeless, poor and weak,
Seeking protection from an Indian King.
Do the white Sagamores their vengeance wreak,
E’en as the red ones, on their brethren?--Speak.”
XIV.
Sire Williams answered: “’Twas no idle song
Sung by that bird which passed Namasket near;
I am an exile these drear wilds among,
And hope for kindness from the red men here.
Oft had thy friendship to the pale-faced throng,
That first Patuxet[13] peopled, reached my ear;
And a whisper told me thou wouldst still be kind
To those who fly, and leave their all behind.”
[13] Patuxet is the Indian name for Plymouth.
XV.
Then rose the tawny monarch of the wood
To speak his memory, as became a chief;
And back he cast his crimson robes, and stood
With naked arm outstretched a moment brief;
Commanding silence by that attitude,
And to his words attention and belief.
Often he paused, his eyes on Williams fixt,
Whilst rang applause his weighty words betwixt.
XVI.
“Brother,” he said, “full many a rolling year
Has cast its leaves and fruitage on the ground,
And many a Keenomp, to his country dear,
Has sate in death beneath his grassy mound,
Since first the pale Awanux kindled here
His council blaze, and so began to found
His tribes and villages, and far and near,
With thundering arms, to wake the red man’s fear.
XVII.
“Brother, attend! When first Awanux came,
He was a child, not higher than my knee;
Hunger and cold consumed and pinched his frame;
Houseless on yonder naked shore was he;
Waves roared between him and his corn and game,
Snows clad the wilds, and winter vexed the sea;
His big canoe shrunk from the angry flood,
And death was on the barren strand he trod.
XVIII.
“Brother, attend! I gave the infant food;
My lodge was open and my fire was warm;
He gathered strength, and felt a richer blood
Renew the vigor of his wasted arm;
He grew--waxed strong--the trees began to bud;
He asked for lands a little town to form;
I gave him lands, and taught him how to plant,
To fish and hunt,--for he was ignorant.
XIX.
“Brother, attend! Still did Awanux grow;
Still did he ask for land;--I gave him more--
And more--and more, till now his hatchet’s blow
Is at Namasket heard, with crash and roar
Of falling oaks, and, like the whit’ning snow,
His growing numbers spread my borders o’er;
Scarce do they leave a scant and narrow place
Where we may spread the blanket of our race.”
XX.
Here paused the chief, as if to ask reply;
Of thankless guests he spoke, and seemed to say
That the white strangers grasped too eagerly,
Nor heeded aught their benefactor’s sway.
Ne’er to the Indian did our Sire deny
His share of Heaven’s free gifts; and, to allay
The ominous mistrust, he answered mild
The dusky king of Pokanoket’s wild:
XXI.
“Brother, I know that all these lands are thine,
These rolling rivers, and these waving trees,--
From the Great Spirit came the gift divine;
And who would trespass upon boons like these?
I would take nothing, if the power were mine,
Of all thy lands, lest it should Him displease;
But for just meed shouldst thou some part resign,
Would the Great Spirit blame the deed benign?”
XXII.
“’Tis not the peäg,” said the sagamore,
“Nor knives, nor guns, nor garments red as blood,
That buy the lands I hold dominion o’er--
Lands that were fashioned by the red man’s God;
But to my friend I give, and take no more
Than to his generous bosom seemeth good;
But still we pass the belt, and for the lands,
He strengthens mine, and I make strong his hands.”
XXIII.
“Weak is my hand, brave chief,” our Sire replied;
“Aid do I need, but none can I bestow;
Yet on the vacant plain, by Seekonk’s tide,
I fain would build, and peaceful neighbors know;
But if my brother has that plain denied,
Far tow’rds the setting sun will Williams go,
And on the lands of other chiefs abide,
Whose blankets are with ampler room supplied.”
XXIV.
As thus our Founder spake, this murmur low
Circled that savage group of warriors round,
“The stranger will to Narraganset go!”
“A hungry wolf shall in his path be found!”
Rejoined stern Corbitant, whose eyes did glow
With kindling wrath;--then from his belt unbound
His hatchet and beneath his blanket hid;--
Warrior to warrior glanced, as this he did.
XXV.