’Twas labor strange to hands like his, I ween,
That had far oftener turned the sacred page
Than hewed the trunk or delved the grassy green;
But toils like these gave honors to the sage;
The axe and spade in no one’s hands are mean,
And least of all in thine, that toiled to clear
The mind’s free march--Illustrious Pioneer!
XI.
His cottage finished, he proceeds to rear
A strong rude paling round that verdant glade
His field and garden soon will flourish there,
And wild marauders may their fruits invade;
His maize may be a banquet for the bear,
And herds of deer may on his herbage tread;
But little thinks he that intruders worse
Than these will enter and his labors curse.
XII.
Now milder spring ushers its April showers,
And up fair Seekonk woos the southern breeze;
The birds are singing in their woodland bowers,
Green grows the ground and budding are the trees
The purple violets and wild strawberry flowers
Invite the visits of the murmuring bees;
And down the glade the twittering swallow slips,
And in the stream her nimble pinions dips.
XIII.
And now, with vigor and redoubled haste,
Our Founder delves to plant the foodful maize;
He turns the glebe, does nature’s rankness waste,
The boscage burn, and noxious brambles raze;
Then o’er the seed, on earth’s brown bosom placed,
The fertile mould with careful hand he lays;
Nor yet content,--still labors, other whiles,
The glade to gladden with a garden’s smiles.
XIV.
Then in the woods he carved the deep alcove,
And led the climbing vines from tree to tree;
But near the cottage left the birchen grove,
Its tassels waving in the breezes free;
While o’er the stream their boughs the cedars wove,
Where wound a walk adown the murmuring lea;
And gadding vines embowered the fount’s bright flow
’Twixt banks of vernal flowers in bloom below.
XV.
Ne’er hatchet touched the overhanging bough,
Whereon the robin built her wonted nest;
About the borders did the wild rose grow,
For there the thrush might soothe her brood to rest;
Nor would he banish from her dwelling low
The long-eared rabbit, but her young caressed;
Fed from his hand they gambolled in the grove,
Caressed our Sire in turn, and mimicked human love.
XVI.
And these long toils had Waban’s faithful aid;
His twanging bow announced the early dawn;
Boldly he pushed into the deepest shade,
Or scanned the tracks upon the dewy lawn;
With lusty arms he grappled on the glade
The growling bear, or caught the bounding fawn,
Or, with sure arrow and resounding bow,
Brought down the turkey from her lofty bough.
XVII.
Sometimes he would the river’s bed explore,
Where with sure grasp the slippery eels he caught;
Sometimes he delved along the sandy shore,
And to the lodge the shelly tribute brought;
And ever shared he with his Sagamore,
(For so to call our Founder he was taught,)
The produce of his toils; and ’twas his care
To parch the maize and spread the frugal fare.
XVIII.
So for a while they two in quietude,
With hopes auspicious, urged their task along,--
Lighter of heart; though Williams still would brood,
And inly marvel, o’er the missing throng
Of friendly Indians, issuing from the wood
To greet him with “What-Cheer” in voices strong;
And oft would wonder if perchance a vain
Illusion had beguiled his troubled brain.
XIX.
But omens dark and dire appeared at last:
The grim Pawaw had seen the mansion rise,--
Had from Mooshausick’s highlands often cast
On the advancing work his watchful eyes;
And often, wafted on the passing blast,
Our Sire had heard that wizard’s warning cries:--
Yet hoped that, baffled and chastised, his pride,
And courage too, had with his serpent died.
XX.
Vain hope! The close had scarce been made secure,
Ere Seekonk’s western marge was blazing bright,
And decked with horns, and furs, and paints impure,
The prophet with a comrade danced all night
Around the flame, and howling, did adjure
His manittoo that most abhorred the light
To give him aid, and, by or force or fraud,
His hated neighbor drive once more abroad.
XXI.
War! war! he threatened:--and when morning came,--
Though quenched the fire,--upon the margin he,
All trim for strife, bent his gigantic frame
O’er Seekonk’s severing flow, and toward the lea
Shook his ensanguined barb and smote the stream,
And muttered curses numbering three times three;
Then bent his bow, and sent across the flood
Darts armed with serpents’ fangs and red with blood.
XXII.
And brandishing his blade, he jeering said,
That vengeance gave it eyes and appetite,
It soon would eat, but eat in silence dread;
That if the red men all were turning white,
He’d seek the white men that were turning red;
The path was open, and his foot was light;
The Shawmut[20] hunters would with greedy ear
Hear in what covert couched their stricken deer.
[20] The Indian name for Boston.
XXIII.
Then, with a hideous yell that rent the skies,
He sternly turned and tow’rd Mooshausick flew.
Waban who watched the scene with blazing eyes,
Swift answer gave in shouts of valor true.
From threats like these our Sire might harm surmise,
But that he deemed the wily wizard knew
How heavy was Miantonomi’s spear,
And, if ’twere needful, might be made to fear.
XXIV.
But, after this portentous morn, scarce sun
Looked on that glade, but brought them fresh alarms;
If Waban delved the shores or walked thereon,
Missiles around him flew from hidden arms;
His snares were plundered ere the morning shone,
Clubs smeared with blood and threatening deadly harms
Lay in his path, and voices strangely broke
From viewless forms on shrub, or tree, or rock.
XXV.
Oft from the vacant air came bitter jeer
In gibberish strange, and oft from under ground
A hellish mockery smote the hunter’s ear,
And he would start; but if he glanced around
And Williams saw, he banished every fear;
For well he knew his Sachem could confound
Such diabolic phantoms,--he who slew,
In Potowomet’s glade, the serpent manittoo.
XXVI.
Then taking courage he would seek the brake,
Cull the straight haft, and arm it with the bone
Or tooth of beaver, and the plumage take
From Neyhom wild to wing and guide it on
Straight to its mark, or with nice handling make
Of sinewy deer the bowstring tough, or hone
His glittering scalping-knife, and grimly feel
How sharp its point, how keen its edge of steel.
XXVII.
At length, no longer heedful of disguise,
Upon the opposing bank the wizard stood,
With meet compeer--both armed; their battle cries
And challenge fired brave Waban’s martial blood;
Scorning all counsel, to the marge he flies,
And shoots his arrows o’er the severing flood;
To taunts and jeers his bow alone replies,
And soon their hostile missiles span the skies.
XXVIII.
From tree to tree the champions fly and fight,
Driving or driven from the sheltering screen,
Each change, each movement, yielding to the sight
Their swarthy members through the foliage green;
Whereat their arrows follow, flight on flight,
With hideous yells at every pause between;
Now down the stream--now at the tumbling falls,
The petty battle raves, and wrath to vengeance calls.
XXIX.
Hour after hour thus raged the doubtful fight,
Until the combatants their shafts had spent;
Then to the river’s marge in peaceful plight,
Bearing the pipe with fumes all redolent,
The fraudful wizard came, as to invite
Across the stream to cheer quite innocent
And friendly league a neighbor and a friend;
“Come, let the pipe,” he said, “the battle end.
XXX.
“Waban is brave, and Tatoban is brave;
Hereafter let us live as neighbors kind,
And let thy arrows sleep; no more shall rave
This knife and hatchet; Tatoban was blind!”
“Go!” Waban cried, “thou and thy dastard slave!
Go trap the Neyhom, or the foolish hind;
But thinkest thou into thy open snare,
To lure the cunning fox, and slay him there?”
XXXI.
Thus closed the strife that day; another came,
And all was peace; another sun and still
Another rose and set, and still the same
Unbroken peace--no threatening sign of ill:
Quite undisturbed red Waban trapped his game
Or delved the shore--no foe appeared; until
Our Sire believed that he might safely bless
His weary hours with earth’s best happiness.
XXXII.
Waban, his only counsellor and friend,
Warrior and subject in this lone domain,
Did now the summons of his chief attend,
And, questioned by him, straightway answered plain.
“Waban,” said Williams, “do our battles end?
Is the war over--have we peace again?
No more on yonder bank the prophet stands
And wings his darts or whirls his blazing brands.”
XXXIII.
Waban replied, “Did ever noon-day light
On midnight break? Did ever tempest shed,
Just as it gathered, radiance mild and bright?
Heard not my Sachem what the prophet said,--
That if the red men were all turning white,
He’d seek such white men as were turning red?
Perchance he goes, and Waban has a fear
That to his cunning speech they’ll lend an ear.”
XXXIV.
“Waban, fear not; my pale-faced brethren are
All Christians, or at least would such be thought;
And dost thou think that Beelzebub, how fair
Soe’er his speech may be, could move them aught
Against their brother? It is better far,--
If it be true such vengeance he have sought,--
Than that he lurk among the bushes here,
To fill our days with care and nights with fear.
XXXV.
“But, Waban, I have now a task for thee;--
Think not of him; but let thy mind be here.
Whilst snows o’erspread the earth and ice the sea,
I parted from my wife and children dear;
’Twas stormy night, the hunter sheltered me,
And gave me in his lodge abundant cheer;
Then tow’rd the rising sun for me he sped,
And saw the home from which the wanderer fled.
XXXVI.
“There too he saw his little children play,
And the white hand which gave the blanket red;
But now that gloomy time seems far away,
For much has happened, many a moon has sped;
The lodge is built, the garden smiling gay;--
Will the swift foot once more the forest thread,
And guide the children and the snow-white hand,
With watchful tendance, to this distant land?”
XXXVII.
Waban replied: “The nimble-foot will go;--
But a gaunt wolf may haunt the hunter’s way,
And he will whet his darts, and string his bow,
And gird his loins as for the battle fray;
The Priest of Chepian ne’er forgets a foe;--
His vengeance lasts until a bloody day
Doth feed the crows, or still a bloodier night
Gives the gaunt wolf a feast ere dawning light.”
XXXVIII.
“God is our trust!” our pious Founder said,
“Arm, and go forth confiding in his might;
So far as e’er an exile’s foot dare tread
The ground forbidden him, thy sachem white
Will go to meet thee; and when morn has shed
Five times from eastern skies her golden light,
Will wait thee and his wife and children dear,
Hidden in Salem woods till thou appear.”
XXXIX.
Our Founder then the brief epistle traced,
Entreating first that some kind Salem friend,
To aid his little Israel through the waste,
Would for a while two well-trained palfreys lend;
Then to his wife, with kind expression graced,
Did meet directions for her guidance send;
Called her from Egypt, bade her cheerly dare
The desert pass, and find her Canaan there.
XL.
The morrow dawned, and Waban stood prepared;
His knife well sharpened and his bow well strung--
He waited only till his chief declared
His purpose full; then on his mantle flung,
Girded his loins, his brawny arms he bared,
And lightly through the rattling thickets sprung;
And soon the thunderings of the partridge tell
Where bounds his distant foot from dell to dell.
CANTO SEVENTH.
[SCENES. Seekonk’s Mead--The Wilderness--Salem--The Wilderness--The
Night at the Cavern--The New Home.]
Much Williams dreaded that dark priest, I ween,
Albeit he hid his fears from Waban’s eyes;
His threat’ning arrows and his savage mien
Would often now in midnight dreams arise;
And, rising, bring of blood a woful scene--
His Mary pale--his children’s wailing cries;
And he would start, and marvel how a dream,
Delirium’s thought, should so substantial seem.
II.
If in the lonely wilds, by evening dim,
That vengeful savage should the path waylay
Of all the dearest earth contained for him,
Those jewels of the heart, what power could stay
His thirst for blood--his fury wild and grim
As is the tiger’s bounding on his prey?
Oft came obtrusive this appalling thought--
He shook it off--still it returned unsought.
III.
Not long he brooks this torturing delay,
But soon tow’rd Salem through the forest goes,
Nor will the Muse go with him on his way,
And sing in horrid shades each night’s repose,
Until she, shuddering, mingle with her lay,
And seem herself to bear her hero’s woes;
Let it suffice that on the third day’s dawn,
He gazed from Salem woods on Salem town.
IV.
He saw the cottage he must tread no more,
And sighed that man should be so stern to man;
Two harnessed palfreys stood beside the door,
And by the windows busy movement ran;
Then did his eyes the village downs explore,
Ere yet the labors of the day began;
But all still slept, save where the watch-dog bayed,
Or lowed the kine and cropt the dewy glade.
V.
And many a field new traces of the plough,
And many a roof its recent structure showed,
And in the harbor many a sable prow,
Rocked by the billows, at her anchor rode;
And, ah! he saw (to him no temple now)
The lowly house where erst in prayer he bowed,
And strove to lead his little flock to Heaven;
His flock no more,--with strifes now sorely riven.
VI.
He turned his eyes again to that dear spot
Where, by the door, the waiting palfreys stood:
There, laden now, they bore what Mary thought
The tender exiles, in the lonely wood,
Would need or miss the most, and likewise aught
That would most cheer or comfort their abode;
With useful household wares, securely piled,
But cumbersome for journeying through the wild.
VII.
He saw red Waban take each palfrey’s rein,
And slowly walk the laden beasts before;
He saw his Mary, with her little train
Of blooming children, issue from the door;
He saw her loving neighbors them detain
The Almighty’s blessing on them to implore,
And heard the farewell hymn, a pensive strain
Of mingled voices as they trod the plain.
VIII.
Pleasant it was, and mournful was it too,
To see the matron leading by the hand,
From all their joys to toils and dangers new,
That innocent and happy infant band;
For, hand in hand, did they their way pursue,
With childish wonder, toward the distant land;--
As little witting of the ills that wait,
As that their labors were to found a State.
IX.
Soon Waban passed him where concealed he stood,
And slowly led his docile charge along;
Then Mary stept into the dusky wood,
Still guiding, as she came, the prattling throng;
No longer viewless he his darlings viewed,
But, wild with rapture, from the thicket sprung:
“Oh, father! father!” burst the children’s cry,
And Mary claspt him in her ecstacy.
X.
But short the transport--soon must they resume
The weary march, and from the dawning gray
Hour after hour, to pensive evening’s gloom,
Through the lone forest wend their devious way;
O’er river, vale, and steep, through brake and broom,
And rough ravine, with aching steps they stray;
The father’s arms oft bore the lovely weight,
Or on the palfrey’s back the weariest sate.
XI.
And thus they past o’er many a rapid flow,
Climbed many a hill--through many a valley wound,
While wary Waban moved before them slow,
And for their feet the smoothest pathway found;
River and fen and miry waste and low,
The floods had swollen to their utmost bound;
Unbridged by frost, no passage do they show,
And far about the anxious wanderers go.
XII.
The sun from middle skies now downward bent
His course, and for a while on lofty ground
They rested, and abroad their glances sent
Far o’er the sea of forest that embrowned
The landscape. The overarching firmament,
The woody waste enclaspt with azure round,
And yon bright sun, yon eagle soaring high,
And yon lone wigwam’s smoke, are all that cheer the eye.
XIII.
At times the eagle’s scream trills from on high,
At times the pecker taps the mouldering bough,
Or the far raven wakes her boding cry,--
All else is hushed the vast expanses through:
And, ah! they feel in the immensity
Of pathless wilds, around them and below,
As in mid-ocean feels some shipwrecked crew,
Borne wandering onward in the frail canoe.
XIV.
And something was there in red Waban’s mien,
Which all the morn had drawn our Founder’s eyes;
For still he spake not, and was often seen
To bend his ear, or start as with surprise;
And now he stood, and, through the thicket’s screen,
The shadowy prospect seemed to scrutinize,
Then paused, unmoving, till a far-off howl
Did, with long echoes, through the stillness roll.
XV.
It seemed a wolf’s, but Waban’s practised ear
Could well the language of the forest tell;
Again he paused, till from the distance drear,
A faint response in dying cadence fell;
Then spake in haste;--“Does not my sachem hear
The voice of vengeance in the breezes swell?
Come! Let us hasten to some friendly town,
For murder tracks us through the forest brown!
XVI.
“Comrade to comrade calls!--the demon’s priest
Is on our trail!”--No more the red man spoke;
And this in Narraganset’s tongue exprest,
To Mary nothing told, save as the look
And earnest gesture may have stirred her breast
With vague alarm.--But these she soon mistook
As native to him in his wonted mood,
And seemed confirmed as she our Founder viewed.
XVII.
He, in like speech, thus to his faithful guide:--
“Waban, be calm! wake not in bosoms frail
A groundless fear; the tokens may have lied;
Some other wolf may be upon our trail.”
“Waban was hunted,” quickly he replied,
“Far tow’rd the white man’s town through yonder vale;
When there, the priest oft in his pathway stept,
And watched the wigwam where the white hand slept.”
XVIII.
Sire Williams shuddered thus to realize
What he had hoped was but his fancy’s fear;
But yet he quelled each symptom of surprise,
And thus to Waban: “Brother, be your ear
Quick as the beaver’s, and your searching eyes
Like to the eagle’s, and, the foeman near,
Be your heart bolder than the panther’s, when
He slays the growling bear and drags him to his den.”
XIX.
They left the steep, and, o’er the woodland plain,
Passed with all speed the tender group could make;
They ford the rivers, and their course maintain
Through ancient groves, where, bare of broom and brake,
The lurking foe might scant concealment gain;
Waban still moved before, and nothing spake;
His rapid glance scanned every thicket near,
And when he paused he bent the listening ear.
XX.
Hour after hour the hunter thus did go,
His eyes still roving and his ears still spread;
His was a spectre’s glide;--but toiling slow,
The lagging group pursued with faltering tread.
At last he paused beneath a birchen bough,
Where the dense alders formed a barricade,
And there awaited them.--With anxious breast
Williams approached, and thus his guide addrest:
XXI.
“Sees not my brother that the shadows grow
Fast tow’rd the east, and that the forest brown
Soon hides the sun?--then whither does he go
To rest in safety till the morrow’s dawn.”
Waban replied, “O’er yonder distant brow,
Smokes in the vale Neponset’s peopled town;
Thy red friends there will thee in safety keep,
There may the white hand and the children sleep.”
XXII.
As thus he spake, across their pathway sped
The startled partridge on her whirring wings;
An arrow glanced--it grazed the hunter’s head,
And the shrill forest with the bowstring rings;
Red Waban’s eyes flash fire, and anger dread
Flames in his blood, and every muscle strings;
He stooped to mark where twanged that hostile bow,
Then sprang from tree to tree, to reach the foe.
XXIII.
But ere he gained the purposed point, or viewed
The fell assassin, the dry fagots’ crash,
The waving coppice, and re-echoing wood,
And sounding footfalls down the brakes that dash,
Told him how vainly he his foe pursued,
Or that pursuit were dangerously rash;
And turning slowly he retraced his track,
As his foiled leap the lion measures back.
XXIV.
The matron trembled, at the scene dismayed,
For she had marked that hostile arrow’s flight,
And Williams’ glance, and Waban’s mien betrayed
That instant peril did their fears excite;
And yet no frantic shrieks her acts degrade;
A mother’s cares did every thought invite;
And o’er the little scions of her blood
She stretched her arms’ frail fence, and trembling stood.
XXV.
Calmer in bearing but with equal dread,
The anxious father viewed the threatening harm;
And, under God, what was there now to aid,
Save his own firmness and red Waban’s arm?
Behind--before--a dreary forest spread;
Far was Neponset; here the dire alarm
Of lurking savage; whilst the gathering night
Still added horror to a dubious flight.
XXVI.
He paused a moment, and his means forlorn,
To guard the onward march, he thus arrayed:
The palfreys shielded by the burdens borne,
On either side the moving group, were led,
This by himself, that by his eldest born,
Whilst nimble Waban scoured the threatening shade,
And, keeping wary watch where’er he ran,
Now fenced their flanks, now pioneered their van.
XXVII.
Like as the eagle,--when, from airy rest
She wards her callow young with watchful eye,
And sees the thickets move, by footsteps prest
Within the precinct of her nursery,--
Wheels first on outstretched pinions round her nest,
Searching below, then darts into the sky
For far espial,--gathering every sound,--
And soars aloft or sails along the ground;
XXVIII.
So Waban watched and ran, while, moving slow,
The anxious father aids the group along.
In dreadful silence sleeps the forest now,
Hushed is the prattling of each infant’s tongue;
No sound is there, save that of footsteps low,
Or of the breeze that sighs the leaves among,
Or palfrey’s tramp--whose hoofs, with iron shod,
Now clink on rocks, now deaden on the sod.
XXIX.
The sun at last sunk in the western shade,
And the thick forest cast a darker frown,
And now they paused amid an open glade,
More than a bow-shot from the thickets brown;
Then Father Williams to the hunter said,
“Where! where! O Waban, is Neponset’s town?”
And Waban answered, “Full one-half a sleep
This march requires to bring us to its steep.”
XXX.
“Then here we rest, to take whate’er may come,”
Our Founder said, “and do you all prepare
To tread the realms that lie beyond the tomb;
There are no foes or persecutors there,
To drive the guiltless forth, and bid them roam
In savage wilds; yet do not quite despair;
When comes the foe,--and come he doubtless will,
Brother! we must be firm--if needful, we must kill!”
XXXI.
“Waban is firm,” the hunter said, and smote
His naked breast, and raised his stature high;
“Yet hear the red man still;--not far remote
Is Waban’s rock, where he is wont to lie
When the far-striding moose has tired his foot,
And night comes down, and tempests rule the sky;
There may we rest; the foe’s approach is hard
But by one pass, and that will Waban guard.”
XXXII.
The place they sought;--’twas down a rocky dell,
Where scarce the palfreys found a footing sure,
Where deeper darkness from the forest fell,
And thicker boscage did the pass immure;
At last, before them, like a citadel,
Rose a tall rock, whose frowning frontals lower
Over a narrow lea, with brambles dense
On either side like an impervious fence.
XXXIII.
“Here,” said the red man, (as he raised a mass
Of vines that clustered down the rock’s descent,)
“Here’s Waban’s cavern, here is ample space
For thee and thine; in this rude tenement
Ten hunters oft have found their biding place,
Nor in it felt themselves too closely pent;
Waban will now below the opening raise,
In yon dry fagots’ heap, the mounting blaze.”
XXXIV.
“Stay! stay!” said Williams, “wouldst thou lure the foe?
Wouldst start the flame to tell him where we sleep?”
The hunter smiled: “My Sachem does not know
How true the foe will to our footsteps keep;
He hears, perchance, e’en now our accents low,
Or marks us from some tree on yonder steep;
Waban will wake the fire; ’twill serve to show
His posture, numbers, and will aid our blow.”
XXXV.
Williams assented; and while Waban fired
The arid fagots, he the burdens took
From off the palfreys, that, o’erwrought and tired,
Now stretched their toil-worn limbs and stoutly shook
Their liberated frames, and fuller breath respired,
And quiet grazed the lea. Then to the rock
The father hastened with a blazing brand;
His wife and children, linking hand in hand,
XXXVI.