On rapid pinions did the dark winged crow, And broad plumed eagle speed their homeward flight; Warned by the signs, the twain, descending slow, In converse grave, passed down the wooded height; And, in the sachem's sylvan palace, share Respite from hunger, toil and present care. CANTO SIXTH. The winds of March o'er Narraganset's bay Move in their strength-the waves with foam are white, O'er Seekonk's tide the waving branches play, The woods roar o'er resounding plain and height; 'Twixt sailing clouds, the sun's inconstant ray But glances on the scene-then fades from sight; The frequent showers dash from the passing clouds; The hills are peeping through their wintry shrouds. II. Dissolving snows each downward channel fill, Who breaks his bondage, and, through forests brown, III. But hark! that sound, above the cataracts And hollow winds in this wild solitude Seems passing strange.-Who, with the laboring axe, Yon ancient groves which from their birth have stood IV. Vaults o'er the thickets, and, down yonder glen, Vex his repose-then, cowering with affright V. Who on the prostrate trunk has risen now, And does with cleaving steel the blows renew? Broad is the beaver of his manly brow, His mantle gray, his hosen azure blue ; His feet are dripping with dissolving snow; His garments sated with the morning dew; His nerves seem strengthened with the labor past ;— His visage hardened by the winter's blast. VI. Though changed by sufferings, 'tis our founder yet; Where reason aye shall spurn the tyrant's chain ; Will rob thee even of an exile's home, VII. Hard by yon little fountain, clear and sheen, Whose swollen streamlet murmurs down the glade, Where groves of hemlocks and of cedars green, Stand 'gainst the northern storm a barricade, Springs the first mansion of his rude demesne, A slender wigwam by red Waban made: Such is sire Williams' shelter from the blast, And there his rest when daily toils are past. VIII. Yet seldom from the storm he shrinks away, To make the free-born spirit quail with fear, IX. Day after day, does he his toil renew; The echoing woods still to the axe resound, The falling cedars do the valley strew, Or cumber with their trunks the littered ground; Or labors hard to roll their masses round ; X. Long did this task sire Williams' cares engage, 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. Boast of your swords, ye blood-stained conquerors-boast The free-born millions ye have made your slaves; Exult o'er fields where liberty was lost, And patriots fell-where lingering o'er their graves, A nation's memory, like a vengeful ghost, Broods never slumbering, and forever raves Of crimes unanswered-till the gathered wrath. Of ages bursts on your ensanguined path— XII. And-where are ye? some remnant left behind, The bonds which bigots gave you to enchain XIII. The dawn beheld him as he issued forth Beneath his arm his well-edged hatchet borne ; Maugre the fury of the stormy north, His toils resumed anticipate the morn; The tempest pours, and, in the whirlwind's wrath, XIV. The beams now hewn, he frames the building squareEach joint adjusting to its counter-part Tier above tier with labor does he bear Timber on timber closes every part; Save where the door and lattice breathe the air; And now the rafters from the wallings start, And matted o'er is every space between, XV. His cot now finished, he begins to rear A paling rude around that verdant glade; And herds of deer might on his herbage tread ; But little thought he that intruders worse |