“Brother, be wise; I gave thy brethren lands;
They smoked my pipe, and they espoused my cause;
They made me strong; and all the neighboring bands
Forsook the Narraganset Sachem’s laws[14]
And mine obeyed.--We weakened hostile hands;
All dropt their arms and looked, but looked in vain,
For my white friends to measure back the main.
[14] See notes to Canto Fourth.
XXVI.
“This leaf, which budded of their hope, now dies;
The Narraganset warriors crest their hair;
Their hatchets keen from troubled slumber rise
And through Coweset make their edges glare;
Chiefs strike the war-post,--blood is in their cries,
And fierce their yells cleave Pokanoket’s air;
They count already with revengeful eyes
The future scalps of vanquished enemies;--
XXVII.
“And all for Wampanoag’s life-blood crave.
On Seekonk’s marge the storm of war will burst;
Lands might I give thee there but that the wave
Will there run red with human slaughter first.
And yet my brother and his friends are brave;
His bulwarks there with guardian thunders pierced,
Might frown on harm;--for surely he would fight
Both for his own and for the giver’s right.
XXVIII.
“And when the Narragansets by our arms
Are from the Seekonk driven far away,
No more molested by the wild alarms
Of scalping knife and tomahawk’s affray,
We may together sit, secure from harms,
And smoke the calumet from day to day;
And our descendants, all the years to come,
Have but one fire--one undivided home.”
XXIX.
“Brother,” said Williams, “these thou seëst are
Hands that the blood of man ne’er crimsoned yet;
Oft do I lift them to the God of prayer--
Ah! how unseemly if with slaughter wet!
But to the hostile Sachems I could bear
The pipe of peace, thy snow-white calumet,
And quench the flame of strife--how better far
Than win thy lands by all-devouring war!
XXX.
“With Waban for my guide, in friendly guise,
Sachem, I would the arduous task essay
To heal those ancient feuds by counsel wise,
And quell the wrath begotten long away;
Were this not better than the sacrifice
Of armies slain in many a bloody fray?
Then may I plant, and, in each neighboring clan,
Meet with a friend where’er I meet a man.
XXXI.
“Ha! Yengee,” said the Sachem, “wouldst thou go
To soothe the hungry panther scenting blood?
Say, canst thou bid Pawtucket’s downward flow
Turn and run backward to Woonsocket’s wood?
The path to peace is shut;--the eager foe
Sharpens his darts, and treads his dances rude,
And through the trembling groves the war-whoop trills
From bleak Manisses[15] to the Nipnet hills.
[15] Manisses--Block Island.
XXXII.
“Yengee! thou seest these Wampanoags brave--
They are my Keenomps in the battle fray;
Would it become Haup’s sagamore to crave
Inglorious rest for warriors strong as they?
They shrink from nothing but a dastard’s grave:
Bound to the stake, upon their lips would play
The smile of scorn. How can they crouch and cry
For peace?”--he said; and Williams made reply:
XXXIII.
“The Great Spirit, almighty o’er the Whole,
Wields earth at will and moulds the hearts of men;
At his command torrents may backward roll,
The hare may gambol in the panther’s den;
In Him I trust, and in His strength my soul
Is more than armies.--Let your brother then
Ask for himself, if not for thee or thine,
That on these lands the sky of peace may shine.
XXIV.
“How could your brother plant, where all around
War’s tempest raging pours its showers of blood?
Where from each thicket bursts the war-whoop’s sound,
And death in ambush lurks in every wood?
When would the feet of his dear friends be found
To pass along the blood-stained solitude,
And bring their all--their dearer far than life--
Beneath uplifted axe and scalping knife?”
XXXV.
Upon our Father’s words to meditate,
That wise old chief kept silence for a space;
Thus far he had prolonged the shrewd debate,
And inly striven his bounties to retrace--
Not, as it seemed at first, from growing hate,
But so to magnify his purposed grace,
That what he gave should be right worthy thought
Of the much needed succor that he sought.
XXXVI.
“Keenomps!” at length thus spake the Sagamore,
“Shall our white brother, not for me or mine,
But for himself, seek Narraganset’s shore,
Disperse the clouds, and let the sunlight shine
From the blue sky of peace?--Our wounds are sore
But hatchets none too keen; and our design
May profit by delay, if he will light
His council fire and gathering friends invite.
XXXVII.
“His bow’s now broken, and his knife now dull,--
But when his warriors shall around him throng--
Its sharpened edge will thirst to peel the skull
Of Narraganset foe;--and he, more strong,
Will wield a mightier weapon, and, more full
Of valor, help us guard ourselves from wrong;
Whilst many a soul he sends to join the ghosts
That cry for vengeance round Sowaniu’s coasts.
XXXVIII.
“On Seekonk’s marge--our battle-stained frontier--
His town will rise, and warlike will he feel;
The foe must pass him if he strike us here;
Our brother then will hang upon his heel,
Hinder his progress, and salute his ear
With the big thunders and the muskets’ peal;
Lo! from the east the Tarrateen no more
Dare pass the Yengee by the ocean shore.”
XXXIX.
As ceased the chief, a fierce smile lit the eyes
And curled the muscles of those men of blood;
They feared the number of their enemies;
This hope was cheering, and all answered--good!
All save stern Corbitant, whose visage is
Dark and portentous as a slumbering flood,
Whose silent bosom holds the imaged storm,
And seems the tempest that the skies deform.
XL.
Then rose each Keenomp, in his turn, and spake:
Each said his knife was sharp, his hands were strong;
But still such counsel as his chief might take
He should deem wise, and so advise his throng.
At length stern Corbitant did silence break;--
But first unloosened from its leathern thong
His scalping knife, and then a circle true
With its bare point upon the earth he drew.
XLI.
“So move the hunters,” the grim sachem said,
Then near the centre made of scores a few;
“Here do the moose and deer the thickets thread
To certain death from them whose feet pursue;
Do not the Yengees thus around us spread?
Are we not hunted thus our forests through?
Will Haup’s brave Sachem yield Awanux aid,
While weep the spirits of his kindred dead?”
XLII.
“Go! thou dark Corbitant!” the old chief cried,
“Unarmed, the stranger seeks our vacant land,--
Far from his friends would plant by Seekonk’s tide,
His blood within the hollow of our hand.
When to the stranger has a chief denied
Food, fire, and space his blanket to expand?
Hunted by him!--when come his friends he may,
If timid deer we are, turn off the beasts of prey.
XLIII.
“He goes, and goes but for himself alone,
To ask that peace between the nations be,
And if the belt of Narraganset won
He bring to Haup, ’twill be received by me.
Now do I charge you, Keenomps, all as one,
That on his path no lurking wolves ye be.
Who dares with purpose fell his way to haunt,
Dies by this hand--e’en were he Corbitant.
XLIV.
“Do thou, swift Waban, with the Yengee go,
And point the way to Narraganset’s clan;
If thou dar’st walk before the bended bow,
Bring back the talks, that we the words may scan;
In all things else to him obedience show--
He is thy sachem--be thou Winiams’[16] man.
But it were safe that thou the pipe should’st bear
Without that painted face and pluméd hair.”
[16] The Wampanoags could not say _l_, but used _n_ in place
of it.
XLV.
Then Williams brought his strings of wampum bright,
And to the Keenomps each a present made,
Which each received, and, mimicking the white,
His thanks returned, and uncouth bow essayed;
And Corbitant’s grim visage seemed to light
With something like a smile that o’er it strayed,
To see the wampum wreath our Founder flung,
Where glittering on his breast the bauble hung.
XLVI.
To Haup’s old chief a belt, with tinselry
Enchased, he gave, and trimmed with gilded wire;
Which when he donned, the warriors gazed in glee
Upon their Sachem in such brave attire;
Then filing singly, each in his degree,
They leave the lodge, and through the woods retire;
The chief appointing Haup, whereat to be
To hear the issue of the embassy.
XLVII.
Waban and Williams only tarried there,
And for the journey soon began to trim;
The red man doft his plumes, and loosed his hair,
And cleansed his visage of its colors grim;
Our Founder chose his Indian gifts to bear,
And pipe of peace, as well becoming him;
And forth they sallied, as from middle sky
The sun looked down between the branches high.
XLVIII.
Waban went foremost, upon nimble feet,
Through ancient grove and over woodland glade;--
His long black hair and blanket red, so fleet
He went, streamed backward in the breeze he made;
Often his form did out of sight retreat
Behind the crag--behind the thicket’s shade--
And then his voice, along the echoing wood,
Told when he paused, or where his way pursued.
XLIX.
At length upon Pawtucket’s marge they stood;
They heard the thunder of his falls below;
Though narrow was the pass, yet deep the flood,
And frail the ice to bridge its dangerous flow;
But on the bank a giant of the wood,
A towering hemlock, waved its lofty bough;
Waban his keen-edged hatchet promptly plied;
It bowed, it fell, and bridged the sounding tide.
L.
Upstayed thereon from bank to bank they past,
And now they travel under hostile sway:
The night around them gathers thick and fast,
Till, as more doubtful grows their devious way.
Their blankets on the frozen earth they cast,
And light the fire, and wait the coming day;--
When safely they their journey may pursue,
And greet the chiefs they seek in season due.
LI.
Williams that night lay on the snow-clad ground,
With nothing o’er him but the starry blue;
In parchéd maize and water pure he found
A sweet repast, that woke devotion true;
For while he saw the soul constrained and bound,
With wings enthralled, but not her eagle view,
One pious prayer made every suffering light,--
That he might free and speed her heavenward flight.
LII.
The red man smoked his pipe, or trimmed the fire,
And to our Father many a story told
Of barbarous battles and of slaughter dire
That on Pawtucket’s marge befell of old;--
How always son inherited from sire
The same fierce passions in like bosom bold;
And wondered that his pale-faced chief could dare
The pipe between such angry Sachems bear.
LIII.
“Ten summers since, on yonder margin green,”
He thus continued in a sadder tone,
“A strong old hunter--Keenomp he had been
Of many deeds--dwelt with his daughter lone:
She, like the bright-eyed fawn, whose beauteous mien
So charms the hunter that he stands like stone;
He, like the brawny stag, with burning eye
And antlers broad, and sinews that defy
LIV.
“The well-aimed shaft. Then Waban was a boy;
And, lonely, loved to go, by moonlight dim
Or dewy morn, to see, all life and joy,
The Bright-Eyed Fawn. But ah! it chanced to him
One morn to seek her at her home’s employ--
And, O! what havoc there!--what horrors grim!
The old man lay in gore!--his daughter gone!
His lodge in ashes! But the dewy lawn
LV.
“Showed prints of hostile feet. Waban is true--
He followed on the trail--a devious route;
Far up the winding stream the morning dew
Betrayed their steps, and hers with theirs; here out
They turned--leaping from rock to rock, they drew
Still onward far, until a thrilling shout,
From far Woonsocket, died on Waban’s ears:
He pauses--listens--and again he hears--
LVI.
“The _Pequot’s_ yell! My Sachem sure has seen
The well-drawn arrow leave the red man’s bow;
So Waban went--the steps he made between
Him and his foes no memory left--e’en now
Waban is there; and, from behind a screen,
Formed by the leaf of bush and bending bough,
He saw the Bright-Eyed Fawn, bound to the stake--
The fagots heaped around--the flames awake!
LVII.
“Two warriors, standing, mock her cries, and four,
In the fire-water drenched, lie here and there
In slumber deep, from which they woke no more.
One arrow Waban sent;--through shoulder bare
Transfixed, one scoffer fell, and quenched in gore
His kindling brand. Then, springing from his lair,
As panther springs, with the bright glancing knife
Did Waban dart, and, hand to hand in strife,
LVIII.
“Cleft down the second, who, with wild amaze,
But faintly fought;--straight from the Bright-Eyed Fawn
The bands were cut, and from the rising blaze
She springs unscathed. The slumberers on the lawn
Were not forgot: they slept--they sleep--yet gaze
(If gaze that be which is all sightless); dawn,
Noon, and night, are one. Broad Antler’s ghost
Wandered not long upon Sowaniu’s coast;
LIX.
“Fully avenged, he sought the spirit band
Of his brave fathers, whilst the daughter, won
By Waban from the cruel Pequot’s hand,
Dwelt in his lodge, the mother of his son.
All now are gone--gone to the spirit land,
And Waban’s left all desolate and lone.”
Such tales the evening hours beguiled, and filled
With breathless zest, or with blank horror chilled.
LX.
They slept at last, though piercing cold the night,
And round them howled the hungry beasts of prey;
Nor broke their slumber, till the dawning light
Gleamed in the east,--when they resumed their way.
Encrusted hard and flashing far and bright,
The snow sent back the rising solar ray;
Mooshausick’s wave was bridged from shore to shore,
And safe they passed the solid water o’er.
LXI.
Westward till now his course did Waban draw;
He shunned Weybosset, the accustomed ford,
Where dwelt dark Chepian’s priest, that grim Pawaw,
Who well he knew the Yengee’s faith abhorred,
And who, perchance, if he our Founder saw
Bearing the pipe of peace, might ill accord
With such kind purpose, and, on evil wing
To Narraganset’s host strange omens bring.
LXII.
Now down the western bank their course they speed,
Passing Pawtuxet in their onward way;
And fast doth Indian town to town succeed,
Some large, some small, in populous array;
And here and there was many an ample mead,
Where green the maize had grown in summer’s ray,
And forth there poured, where’er they passed along,
Of naked children many a gazing throng.
LXIII.
Their small sunk eyes, like sparks from burning coal,
On the white stranger stared; but when they spied
The Wampanoag, they began to roll
With all the fury--mimicking the pride--
Of their fierce fathers; and the savage soul,
Nursed e’en in youth on thoughts in carnage dyed,
Instinctively, with simultaneous swell,
Sent from their lips the unfledged battle yell.
LXIV.
Their little bows they twanged with threatening mien,
Their little war-clubs shook to tell their ires;
Their mimic scalping-knives they brandished keen,
And acted o’er the stories of their sires;
And had their fathers at this moment seen
(For they were gone to Potowomet’s fires),
Our Founder’s guide, they might have caught the tone
Of their young urchins, and the hatchet thrown.
LXV.
Still village after village smoked; the woods
All swarmed with life as forward still they fared;
For numbers great, but not for multitudes
So numberless, had Williams been prepared;
Was it for him to tamper with the moods
Of these fierce savages, whose arms were bared,
Whose souls were ripe, and stalwart bodies trim,
For the wild revelry of slaughter grim?
LXVI.
How could he hope a safe abiding place,
Far in these forests, and his friends so few--
Among a wild and blood-besotted race,
That naught of laws divine or human knew;
Their wars proceeding oft from mad caprice,
Their hearts as hard ’s the tomahawks they threw:--
Would his temerity by Heaven be blest?
Would God nurse zephyrs on the whirlwind’s breast?
LXVII.
Whilst musing thus, and onward moving still,
His soul o’ershadowed with suspicious fears,
He gained the summit of a towering hill,
And downward gazed.--Far stretched beneath appears
A woodland plain; and murmurs harsh and shrill,
As from accordant voices, on his ears
Rise from the midmost groves, and o’er the trees,
A hundred smokes curl on the morning breeze.
LXVIII.
And now to sight, through leafless boughs revealed,
Now hid where thicker branches wove their screen,
Bounding and glancing, in swift circles wheeled
Men painted, plumed, and armed with weapons sheen,
And flashing clear or by the trees concealed,--
Glimmering again and waved with threatening mien,--
The lifted tomahawks and lances bright
Seemed to forestall the frenzied joy of fight.
LXIX.
Mixed with the sound of voices and of feet,
Alternate slow and fast, the hollow drum
Its measured rote or rolling numbers beat,
And ruled in various mood the general hum;--
Now slow the sounds, now rapid their repeat,
Till at a sudden pause, did thrilling come
That tremulous far undulating swell,
From out a thousand lips, the warrior’s yell;--
LXX.
As ’twere from frantic demons. And the face
Of Waban paled--then darkened as he said,
“The Narragansets there their war-dance trace,
They count our scalps, and name our kindred dead;
This heart grows big--it cannot ask for peace;
’Twould rather rot upon a gory bed
Than hear the spirits of its sires complain,
And call for blood,--but ever call in vain.”
LXXI.
“Waban,” said Williams, “dost thou fear to go?
Wilt thou thy Yengee sachem leave alone?
How will thy Sagamore the speeches know,
If homeward now his messenger should run?
Not thou, but I will ask the haughty foe
To quench his fires, and quell the dance begun;
But for thy safety, thou the calumet
Shalt bear beside me, till the chiefs are met.”
LXXII.
“Waban,” he answered, “never shook with fear,
Nor left his Sachem when he needed friends;
It is the thought of many a by-gone year
That kindles wrath within my breast, and sends
Through all this frame, my boiling blood on fire!--
Still Waban on his pale-faced chief attends,
But bears no pipe;--the Wampanoag’s pride
Bids him to die, as his brave fathers died.”
LXXIII.
“Waban, at least, will smoke the pipe awhile?”
Said Williams gravely to his moody guide,
“Its fragrant breath is as on billows oil;
It calms the troubled waves of memory’s tide.”
The grateful offer seemed to reconcile
The peaceful emblem to the warrior’s pride:
He fills the bowl--he wakes the kindling fire--
And o’er his head the curling clouds aspire.
LXXIV.
And whilst he sits, the sylvan muse will string
Her rustic harp to wake no gentle strain
Of barbarous camps, and savage chiefs who sing
The song of vengeance to their raptured train;
Of councils, and of wizard priests that bring
Strange omens, dark dominion to maintain;
Of incantations dire, and of that spell
By Sesek wrought--which seemed the feat of Hell.
CANTO FOURTH.
[SCENE. The Narraganset Camp at Potowomet.]
The twain have left the height, and sought the glade
Where the red warriors wheel the martial dance;
A while the thick young cedars round them made
A cover that concealed their still advance;
But passing quickly through the denser shade,
Sire Williams sent abroad his searching glance
O’er the rude camp, and saw, on every side,
Around the blazing fires the dancers glide.
II.
Hundreds on hundreds thronged the glade, I ween,
With painted visages and pluméd hair;
There bristled darts, there glittered lances sheen,
And brandished knives upon the ambient air
Carved fiery circles--whilst, with threatening mien,
Their dark locks streaming and their muscles bare,
The dancers circled o’er the thundering ground,
And leaping, breathed the hard, harsh, aspirated sound.
III.
But chiefly tow’rd the centre pressed the throngs
Where plied the bravest chiefs their dances rude:--
There listened to their Sachem’s battle songs,
And when he ceased, in leaps his lance pursued;
The while the tumult swelled until their lungs,
Wrung to the highest effort, filled the wood
With the wild war-whoop, tremulous and shrill,
Then hushed itself and suddenly was still;
IV.
Till from the groups another Sachem sprung,
To tell his deeds, and count his foemen slain;
Lancing the war-post as his numbers rung,
As if he slew his vanquished foe again;
Whilst on his words the listening warriors hung,
And drank with greedy ears the bloody strain,
Cheering at times with plaudits loud and long,
The butcheries numbered in the martial song.
V.
Amid the tumult of this boisterous rout,
Williams, unmarked, had gained the central glade,
When all at once an unaccustomed shout
Startled the groups around the fires arrayed,
And staring eyes, and pointing hands about,
Proclaimed the strangers to their view betrayed;
Then died that hum, like the past whirlwind’s roar,
When the dust rises on the distant shore.
VI.
And all were hushed, while round them, man to man
They glanced, and wonder in their faces grew,
Till through the camp the sullen rumor ran,
“Pale-faced Awanux! Wampanoag too!”
And warriors, kindling at the words, began
To grasp their weapons all that gathering through;
When, lo! they opened like a parting tide,
And once again their murmurs lulled and died.
VII.
And Williams paused; for, from the severed crowd,
A chief advancing trod the breathing plain;
Bold was his port, his bearing high and proud,
A lance of length did his right hand sustain;
The glittering wampum did his brows enshroud,
His nodding plumage wore a crimson stain;
His armlets gleamed--his belt, with figures traced,
Supported skirts with purple pëag laced.
VIII.
His naked limbs were stained a sable hue,
His naked chest and face a crimson red;
Streamed backward from his brow two ribbons blue,
And with his long black hair wild dalliance made;
Suspended from his belt, half sheathed from view,
His scalping knife and tomahawk were stayed;
His eyes below his lowering forehead glowed
Like two bright stars beneath a thunder cloud.
IX.
With strong majestic stride and lofty gait,
He neared our Founder and his dusky guide,
Who, in half tone, could but ejaculate,
“Miantonomi!” when his Indian pride
Choked further utterance, though still elate,
Grasping his axe, with nostrils spreading wide,
Self-poised he stood; appearing to await
The approaching chief, who glanced disdainful hate.
X.
Our Founder chid his guide, and high displayed
The calumet in one white hand, the while
He raised the other, and mild gesture made
Bespeaking peace. Well did the act beguile
And soothe the Sachem’s passion, and he said,
Turning from Waban, with a scornful smile:
“Has, then, Awanux come to hear the song?
Our darts are thirsty, and our arms are strong!”
XI.
Then Williams: “Sachem, in the cause of Him,
The great Good Spirit whom we all adore--
Who smiles not on the contests fierce and grim
Of his red children in the field of gore--
I have come hither, in unwarlike trim,
To crave thy friendship, and of thee implore
That these black clouds portending bloody rain
May go, and let the sky shine out again.”
XII.
So answering, the calumet of peace
He tendered to that warlike Sagamore,
Who clenched his hands, and backward stept a pace,
“Nay! Nay, Awanux! Wampanoag gore
Will M’antonomi’s feet in battle trace
Ere dies another moon. He hears no more;
’Tis not for him, amid these Keenomps bold,
To talk of peace--that suits his uncle old.”
XIII.
Williams to this: “Then the gray chief is wise;
His glance is forward, and around him turns;
But o’er the young chief clouds of anger rise,
He sees but backward, and his vengeance burns;
Show me to him who looks with wisdom’s eyes
Upon the nations, and most truly learns,
From by-gone toils and dangers of his life,
To prize the pipe above the scalping-knife.”
XIV.
At this his bosom the young Sachem struck,
And braced his frame, and flashed his kindling eye--
“This breast is generous,” he proudly spoke,
“Of like for like abundant its supply;
Of good and bad it hath an ample stock;
It cheers its friend, it blasts its enemy--
Ten favors does it for each favor done,
And ten darts sends for every hostile one.
XV.
“Follow the war-chief;--mid yon heavy cloud
Of warriors grim in arms and martial dyes,
Sits the gray Sachem in his numbers proud,
But prouder still in counsels old and wise.”
So spake he, striding tow’rd the lowering crowd.
Williams to calmness did his guide advise;
And both with cautious step and slow pursued
The Sachem tow’rd that fearful multitude.
XVI.