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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.

Raptured he paused.

In yonder little glen,

He'd rear his shelter

LXXVI.

Here then was Waban's mead; the fountain by,

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

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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 armed 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." — Willliams 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.

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