Its floor a level rock, its vaulted roof
Of granite masses formed, whose arches stood
More firmly for the weight they propped aloof;--
And here and there upon the floor were strewed
Extinguished brands, which, with like signs, gave proof
That men had dwelt there;--then, through screening vines
Sire Williams glances out and marks where shines,
XXXVII.
Full on red Waban’s face, the mounting blaze.
Though half a bow-shot from the cavern he
Stands at the fire, yet its bright sheen displays
His hue and shape, and then could Williams see
How well the hunter judged thus far to raise
The burning pyre; no passage could there be
For hostile foot, save by that glittering flame,
Which well would light the arrow’s certain aim.
XXXVIII.
Such furniture, as for their strongest need
The wretched exiles had themselves supplied,
Was to the cave now brought, with bread to feed
The little children clustering by the side
Of their fond parents.--Then did thanks succeed
To God who deigned such comforts to provide,
And earnest prayers that His protecting might
Would shield them through the dangers of the night.
XXXIX.
With trembling haste a slight repast they took,
And to their several places then repaired;
The mother sate deep in the rocky nook
Beside her children, and their pallet shared;
Red Waban sate upon a jutting rock,
Hard by the cavern’s mouth, the pass to guard;
While at the entrance, Williams listening stood,
Screened by the vines, and every passage viewed.
XL.
Deep night came down o’er forest, vale and hill--
The dismal hootings of the darkling owl,
The melancholy notes of Whip-poor-will,
And the lone wolf’s far distant long-drawn howl,
Answered at times by panther screaming shrill,
Such hideous echoes through the forest roll,
That Mary shudders, and, from transient sleep,
The infants starting up for terror weep.
XLI.
But Williams listened with accustomed ear,
The dread of man alone disturbed his breast;
Hour after hour, unmarked by danger near,
The pass he watches for the savage priest,
And still, with eyes turned tow’rd the flame, doth hear
Whatever steps the rustling leaves molest;
And oft he thought that through the brake he saw
The waving fox-tail of the grim Pawaw.
XLII.
At last within the hollow forest rose
Strange sounds that were unmeaning to his ear;--
As if there human hands were breaking boughs
Green with the verdure of the new-born year;
Crash follows crash.--“Are these approaching foes?
Do one or more their march thus pioneer?”
No answer Waban made, but seemed to shrink
Among the vines along the rock’s dark brink.
XLIII.
A moment more, and, bounding o’er the hedge,
A monster trotted tow’rd the mounting flame;
Then turned and bayed;--’twere doubtful to allege
Dog, fox, or wolf, his aspect best became;
Still did he howl, with still increasing rage;
And Waban rose and gave his arrow aim,
But ere its flight, a whistled signal rang;
The hybrid turned, and to the forest sprang.
XLIV.
“The fell Pawaw! his dog!” red Waban cried,
In tone suppressed, and hid himself again;
And Williams feared he had too much relied
Upon the courage of that dusky man;
He took the hatchet from the hunter’s side,
And dropt the feebler bludgeon from his span;
“Thy sachem,” said he, “will himself essay
To aid his warrior in the approaching fray.”
XLV.
“’Tis good!” said Waban, “so red sachems do--
But there! behold! behold! They come! They come!”
And Williams looked, and there, the thickets through,
Half in the light, half in the changeful gloom,
The forest boughs seemed moving out to view,
Branch heaped on branch, a weight most cumbersome
For human feet, yet human feet, he knew,
That burden bore, and with it dangers new.
XLVI.
Straight to the blaze they moved, and, dashing down
The leafy branches on the mounting flame,
Put out the light, and smoke and shadow brown,
In total darkness, all the glade o’ercame;
The mother shrieked; the father, with a groan,
Heard the wild cry, and stayed her sinking frame;
And both now felt that, with that smothered ray,
The last faint trembling hope had died away.
XLVII.
A fearful growl, close to the cavern’s vent,
First broke the thrall of horror and surprise;
And, by the gleam the smouldering embers sent,
That canine hybrid, shooting from his eyes
A baleful glare, crouched seemingly intent
On the scared infants as his famine’s prize;
The father drove the hatchet to his brains,
One yell he gave, and writhed in dying pains.
XLVIII.
Seeking the cavern’s mouth along the rock,
Some groping hand the vine’s thick foliage stirred;
“Where art thou Waban!” and the war-whoop broke;
Palsied with fear the trembling mother heard;
“Where art thou, Waban!” and, with horrid look,
A giant savage through the foliage stared;
But, at that moment, from his rocky mound
Twanged Waban’s bow with sudden sharpest sound.
XLIX.
Back reeled the savage with a dismal howl,
And on the earth like stricken bullock fell.
But still new terrors filled the father’s soul;
He heard another and more fearful yell;
Across the glade a new assailant stole;
The blaze reviving showed his movements well;
And Williams sprang his warrior to sustain,
Just as he strained the yielding bow again.
L.
But as he drew the arrow to the head,
The cord snapt short; he dashed the weapon down,
And leaping from the rock upon the glade,
With glittering scalping-knife and haughty frown,
Before the assailant stood, who paused, surveyed,--
Measuring the hunter’s height from heel to crown,--
Then, swift as thought, the vengeful hatchet sent;
At Waban’s head the well-aimed weapon went.
LI.
But well the wary hunter knew his foe
And read his murderous purpose in his eye;
He marked the coming steel, and, bending low,
Let it pass on and cleave the air on high;
Behind him rings the cliff with shivering blow,
And far around its scattered atoms fly;
Then with wild yells they wave the scalping-knife,
Together rush, and thrust and strike for life.
LII.
O! ’twas a fearful scene--a moment dire;
For on the issue of that contest lay
The lives of infants, mother, and of sire,
And the fair fame that crowns a distant day.
Soon closed the champions by the glimmering fire,
Limbs locked in limbs in terrible affray;
They writhe--they wrench--they stagger to and fro,
Hands grasping hands that aim the fatal blow.
LIII.
Now struggling by the flames they past from sight,
For Williams lingered yet to guard the cave;
And there, enveloped in a deeper night,
With fiercer fury did the contest rave;--
The blow, the wrench, the pantings of the fight,
The crash of branches and of thickets gave
A dreadful note of every effort made,
Where life sought life within that shuddering shade.
LIV.
The mother sank beside the father, pale
And scared; the children her affright partook;
At times they raised the sympathetic wail;
At times with breathless terror mutely shook.
Williams peered out along the kindling vale;
No sign of other foe there met his look;
Then with a word that quick return presaged,
He rushed tow’rd where the doubtful contest raged.
LV.
He passed the flame and paused--for on his ear
There came, with one loud crash, a heavy sound;
He listens still; and silence, sudden, drear,
Reigns o’er the glade, and through the gloom profound.
Who is the victim? Evil-boding fear
Tells him that Waban gasps upon the ground;
One bubbling groan, as if the life-blood gushed;
A shuddering struggle then--and all was hushed.
LVI.
In dire suspense the anxious father stood,
Yet did he still unmanly terrors quell;
His hand, yet innocent of human blood,
Now grasped the axe to meet the victor fell;
When from beneath the arches of the wood,
Rang the far-trembling, death-announcing yell,
So like a demon’s issuing from his pit--
Who but that savage could the sound emit?
LVII.
Then moving slowly in the gloomy wood,
Doubtful and darkling through the ghostly shade,
A form approached, and as it onward trod,
Appeared distinct upon the open glade;
’Twas Waban!--Waban bathed in hostile blood;
And by the lock he held a trunkless head.
He stooped beside the mounting blaze to shew,
Still more distinct, his trophy to the view.
LVIII.
With lips still quivering, and with eyes unglazed,
The reeking fragment seemed as living still;
Fierce on the horrid thing the victor gazed,
The battle’s wrath did still his bosom fill;
His eyes looked fire, another yell he raised,
That rang rebellowing from hill to hill;
Then, by the long dark lock swung from the ground,
He whirled on high the ghastly ball around.
LIX.
Around--around--still gathering force it went;
Still on his sinews strained the whirling head,
Till cleaving from the skull the scalp was rent,
And through the air the ponderous body sped;
Deep in the hollow woods its force was spent,
Thrice bounding from the ground, then falling dead;--
He turned and spoke: “No more the babes shall weep!
The grim Pawaw now sleeps! and Waban now can sleep!”
LX.
They passed the turf, as they the cavern sought,
Where fell the body of the earliest slain;--
Said Waban, as he paused beside the spot,
“The black Priest’s comrade never wakes again;”
Then seized the body roughly by the foot,
And dragged it, bleeding yet, along the plain
Straight to the rocky steep, and o’er it dashed;
It dropped in night; re-echoing thickets crashed.
LXI.
Then the rude victor washed the stains away,
Cast him on earth, and soon deep slumber showed
How lightly in his rugged bosom lay
The horrid memory of that scene of blood;--
But Williams watched until the dawning gray,
And Mary’s fitful sleep the scenes renewed,
While the young dreamers in her circling arms,
Oft shrieked and sobbed in slumber’s vain alarms.
LXII.
The morning dawns, and they their march resume;
No perils now annoy their toilsome way;
The night came down, and with its sober gloom
Brought quiet sleep until the morning’s ray;
Again they rose, and gained their joyous home
On Seekonk’s marge, just at the close of day;
And Him they blessed, who had in safety led
Them through dire perils, to their humble shed.
CANTO EIGHTH.
[SCENE. The New Home in Seekonk’s Mead.]
Through Seekonk’s groves the morning sun once more
Flames in his glory. Waving verdant gold,
The boundless forest stands. Wild songsters pour,
From every dewy glade and tufted wold,
The melody of joy. From shore to shore
The tranquil waters dream, and soul-like hold
A mirrored world below of softest hue,
With underhanging vault of cloudless blue.
II.
And Williams issued from his humble cot,
Not as of late in solitary mood,
With cheerless heart and ill-foreboding thought,
But with light step and breast of quietude;
And by him came the partner of his lot,
And their young children, with blithe interlude
Of prattling speech, softening the graver talk
Of the fond parents in their morning walk.
III.
In sooth his buoyant spirits seemed to spread
O’er all about him their enlivening flush;
Ne’er was the grass so verdant on the glade,
Ne’er did the fountain sparkle with such gush;
Ne’er had the stream such lovely music made,
Ne’er sang so blithe the robin on the bush;
The woodland flowers far brighter hues displayed,
More sunny was the lawn, more dark the shade.
IV.
They walked and talked; he told his trials o’er;
And often Mary brushed aside the tear,
And oft they joined to thank kind Heaven once more,
That thus his sufferings were rewarded here;
Then they would sit beneath the fountain’s bower,
And woo the breeze, or smiling bend the ear
To childly mirth, which, in its silver tone,
Soothed the rude wilds with music erst unknown.
V.
And all was happiness,--security
In blest seclusion. The rude storm seemed past,
The bow of promise spanned their life’s new sky;
No threatening cloud their prospects overcast,--
No shadow lowered; but Heaven with gracious eye
Looked smiling down and blest their toils at last.
Their Salem friends to join them soon will try,--
That they’re not here is all that brings a sigh.
VI.
Thus for a time did they anticipate
The bliss which Heaven for pilgrims has in store,
When their freed souls review their former state,
And bygone pains enhance their joys the more;
But yet one lingering fear of frowning fate,
Our Founder’s bosom lightly brooded o’er--
No Indian throng, as promised by the seer,
Had bid them welcome with Whatcheer! Whatcheer!
VII.
But let it pass;--perchance it was a dream;
His thoughts seemed wandering or disturbed at best,
When stood or seemed to stand, in doubtful gleam,
That form scarce earthly, and his ears addrest;--
Ay, let it pass--for ill would it beseem
So staid a man to be at all deprest
By visionary fears or superstitious dread,
Whilst Heaven is showering mercies on his head.
VIII.
“Waban,” he said, “a generous feast prepare,
We can be cheerful, and yet not be mad;
The good man’s smiles may be a praise or prayer;
The wicked only should be very sad.
God feeds the birds, my Mary, in the air,--
Hear how they thank Him with their voices glad.
The heart of man should nearer kindred own,
Joy in his smiles and sorrow in his frown.”
IX.
Then forth fared Waban to the winding shore,
And quickly laid its shelly treasure bare,
Nor failed the woody dingles to explore,
And trap the partridge or the nimble hare;
And soon beneath a beech, beside the door,
On marshalled stones the blazing fagots are;
And when with heat the pristine oven glows,
Waban his tribute gives, and covers close.
X.
Meanwhile our Founder went from place to place,
And did each plan of village grandeur name;
This rising mound the future church should grace,
Yon little dell the village school should claim;
That sloping lawn the council hall should base,
Where freemen’s voices should the law proclaim,
And ne’er to bigot yield the civil rod,
But save the Church by leaving her to God.
XI.
So pass the hours, till westward through the skies
The sun begins to turn, and, savory grown,
From Waban’s ready feast the vapors rise;
The group beneath the beech then sit them down;
“Thou kind and generous man,” our Founder cries,
“Our brave defender! thy complexion brown
Bars not thy presence;--sit thou at the board,--
Of these bright lands God made thy kind the lord.
XII.
“My valliant warrior like a Keenomp fought,
And Chepian’s priest before his valor fell!
But his white Sachem in the battle wrought
Too little for a chief he loves so well.”
“The dog--the dog! that had the children caught,”
Exclaimed the red man, “does his valor tell;
A manit-dog he was, for well he knew
Whate’er the priest of Chepian bade him do.
XIII.
“The priest of Chepian and his comrade came
To fight the white man and his warrior brave;
The fox-eared demon sought for other game,
And went to filch it from the rocky cave;
My Sachem white a manittoo o’ercame,
To demon dark a fatal wound he gave;
Brave is my Sachem, for he nobly slew
What Waban dreaded most,--that fearful manittoo!”
XIV.
“Brother,” said Williams, “under Power Divine,
That shields the just man in dark peril’s hour,
Thine was the victory, and the glory thine
To quell Apollyon’s priest--a demon’s power!
Henceforth the demon must his lands resign,
And thou must be Mooshausick’s Sagamore,
The right of conquest will do very well,
When Hell assails us, and we conquer Hell.
XV.
“But might the choice of either blameless go,
Mary! these fruits of suffering and of toils,
And racking cares through fourteen weeks of woe,
I’d prize far higher than the reeking spoils
Of all the nations laid by Cæsar low,
When he, the victor in Rome’s civil broils,
Sate, like the Jove he worshipped, o’er a world
Whose crowns were offered, and whose incense curled.
XVI.
“And there is cause, I trow.--Who cannot see
That a dark cloud o’er our New England lowers?
The tender conscience struggles to be free;
The tyrant struggles, and retains his powers.
O, whither shall the hapless victims flee,
Where be their shelter when the tempest roars?
May it be here--may it be Heaven’s decree,
To make its builder of a worm like me.”
XVII.
While thus he spake, the neighboring thickets shook,
And from them issued one of mien austere;
And Williams knew a Plymouth elder’s look,
In doctrines stern--in practice most severe;
His gait was slow, and loath he seemed to brook
Such signs of comfort and of earthly cheer;
And up he came, they scarce could reason why,
Like a dark cloud along a cheerful sky.
XVIII.
The gloom that gathered o’er our Father’s breast,
He strove with heavy effort to dispel;
“Elder!” he said, “thou art an honored guest;
To see our ancient friends should please us well;
Thy journey long must give the banquet zest;
Come and partake our sylvan meal, and tell
The while what word or tidings thou mayst bear
From Plymouth’s rulers and our brethren there.”
XIX.
“Williams,” he said, “I need no food of thine--
The wilds I thread not without store my own;
But I would fain beneath that roof recline
To-night, and rest my limbs till morn be shown;--
And there this eve some reasoning, I opine,
(For all may err,) a weighty theme upon,
May not be deemed amiss.--Perchance a light
Will on thee break and set thy feet aright.”
XX.
“Elder, whatever themes,” our Founder said,
“My scant attainments fit me to essay,
Shall not avoidance have from any dread
That thy strict logic may my faults betray;
That ‘all may err,’ means that our friends have strayed,
And not that we have wandered from the way;
It is a maxim to perversion grown,
And points to others’ faults to hide our own.
XXI.
“But as my Plymouth visitor requests,
We’ll seek that cottage; I have called it mine,
These hands have built it; but all friendly guests
May call it theirs, and, Elder, it is thine
While thou sojournest here. Whoever rests
Beneath its roof may not expect a fine,
A dungeon, scourge, or even banishment,
For heresy avowed, or doubted sentiment.”
XXII.
They sought the cottage.--Its apartments rude,
But still a shelter from the cold and heat,
A cheerful fire and fur-clad settles shewed,
And other comforts, simple, plain, and neat.
The Elder paused, and all the mansion viewed,
Then, with a long-drawn sigh, he took his seat,
And briefly added--“Thou hast labored, friend,
Hard--very hard! I hope for worthy end.”
XXIII.
He paused again, then solemnly began
A sad relation of the Church’s state;
O’er many a schism and false doctrine ran,
That had obtruded on its peace of late;
But most alarming was our Founder’s plan,
To leave things sacred to the free debate;
To make faith bow to erring reason’s shrine,
And mortal man a judge of creeds divine.
XXIV.
“This simple truth no Christian man denies,”
He thus continued, “that the natural mind
Is prone to evil as the sparks to rise,
And to the good is obstinately blind;
Who then sees not, that looks with wisdom’s eyes,
That God’s elect should rule the human kind?
The good should govern, and the bad submit,
And saints alone are for dominion fit?”
XXV.
Our Founder answered, “Art thou from the pit?
Get thee behind me, if such thoughts be thine;
Did Christ his gospel to the world commit,
That his meek followers might in purple shine?
He spurned the foul temptation, it is writ,
And the Great Tempter felt his power divine;
Art thou far wiser than thy Master grown,
And spurn’st a heavenly for an earthly crown?”
XXVI.
“Nay--nay, friend Williams!” the grave elder cried,
“It is that crown of glory to secure
That the True Church should for her saints provide
The shield of law ’gainst heresy impure;
Quell every schism--crush the towering pride
Of the dark Tempter, ere his reign is sure;
For many finds he who are servants meet
To sow for him the tares among the wheat.
XXVII.
“Men ever busy, searching for the new,
Scanning our creed as if it doubtful were,
These would we hold perforce our doctrines to,
And the vain labor to convert them spare;
God may in time their restless souls renew,
And give them of his grace a saving share;--
Meanwhile our Church their errors would restrain,
And to her creed their wayward minds enchain.”
XXVIII.
“A mortal thou!” our Founder here replied,
“Yet judge of conscience,--searcher of the heart
Thou, the elect?--but if it be denied,
How wilt thou prove it, or its proofs impart?
God gave to man that bright angelic guide,
A reasoning soul, his being’s better part;--
He gave her freedom; but thou wouldst confine
And cramp her action to that creed of thine.
XXIX.
“Who binds the soul extends the reign of hell;
She’s formed to err, but, erring, truth to find;
Pity her wanderings, but, O never quell
The bold aspirings of this angel blind!
God is her strength within, and bids her spell,
By outward promptings, the eternal Mind:
Long may she wander still in quest of light,
But day will dawn at last upon a polar night.”
XXX.
“A dangerous tenet that!” the Elder said;
“A fallen angel doubtless she may be;
If truth she find by natural reason’s aid,
It ever leads her to some heresy;
Indeed, the truth too often is betrayed
To minds ill-fitted for inquiry free;
From bad to worse, from worse to worst we go,
And end our being in eternal woe.
XXXI.
“Nature’s own truths do oft the mind mislead;
From partial glimpses men will judge the whole;
And it were better if our Church’s creed
Were learning’s object and its utmost goal;
Reason would then no higher purpose need,
Than, by it, point the yet erratic soul
To her high hope and everlasting rest!”
Williams this heard, and spake with kindling breast:
XXXII.
“God gave man reason, that his soul might be
Free as his glance that spans the universe;
All things around him prompt inquiry free,
All do his reason to research coerce;
The Heavens, the Earth, the many breeding sea,
All have their shapes and qualities to nurse
The soul’s aspirings, and, from blooming youth
To ripe old age, provoke the quest of truth.
XXXIII.
“Truth! I would know thee wert thou e’er so bad,
Bad as thy persecutors deem or fear,
Wert thou in more than Gorgon terrors clad,
Thy glance a death to every feeling dear;
Taught thou that God a demon’s passions had,
That Earth is Hell, and that the damned dwell here,
And death the end of all;--still would I know
The total Curse--the sum of being’s woe.
XXXIV.
“Yet fear not this, for each new truth reveals
Of God a nearer and a brighter view;
Anticipation lags behind, and feels
How mean her thought at each discovery new;
Her stars were stones fired in revolving wheels--
Truth! thine are worlds self-moved the boundless through
Who checks man’s Reason in her heavenward flight,
Would shroud, O God! thy glorious works in night!
XXXV.
“Whence didst thou learn that the Almighty’s plan
Required thy wisdom to protect and save,
That, when he sent his Gospel down to man,
Thou to defend it must the soul enslave,
Enthrone deceit, and place beneath its ban
The honest heart, that dares its sentence brave?
Full well I trow the Prince of Darkness fits
The blood of martyrs shed by hypocrites.
XXXVI.
“Hearken for once; just as the conscience pure
Is here God’s presence to my wayward will--
Not to constrain it, but to kindly lure
It on by duty’s path, from every ill;
So to the State the Christian Church, secure
From human thrall, should be a conscience, still
Ne’er to constrain, save by that heavenly light
Which bares the Wrong, and maketh plain the Right.”
XXXVII.
“No more, friend Williams,” said the Elder here,
“No more will we on this grave theme delay;
My hopes were high, and ’twas an object dear
To shed some light on thy benighted way;
But still wilt thou with sinful purpose steer
Thy little bark against the tempest’s sway;
On mayst thou go--I cannot say God speed!
But would thy object were some better deed.
XXXVIII.
“Couldst thou renounce thy purpose here to base
A State where heretics may refuge find,
I do not doubt that to some little grace
The Plymouth rulers would be well inclined;
But as it is, perhaps some other place,
Still more remote, may better suit thy mind;
But till the morn as may a guest befit,
My message hither do I pretermit.”
XXXIX.
Our Founder pondered on the Elder’s word;
What could this dark portentous message be,
With its delivery until morn deferred,
Lest it should mar night’s hospitality.
The wrath of Plymouth he had not incurred,
He with her Winslow was in amity;
Then what strange message had the Elder borne,
That utterance sought, and yet was hushed till morn!
XL.