My hatchet too-its service I require,
To clip my fuel desert wilds among ;
With these I go to found in forests drear,
A State where none shall persecution fear.”

XXXII.

"What! goest thou Roger in this chilling storm?
Wait! wait at least until its rage is o'er-
Its wrath will bar e'en persecution's arm

From thee and me until it fails to roar-
Oh! what protecting hand will shield from harm
Thee by dark night, and where the friendly door
To give thee shelter from the dire alarm

Of hungry wolves, and beasts in human form."

XXXIII.

"Cease, cease, my Mary, thou dost e'en complain That Heaven does kindly interpose to save

Does wing this tempest's fury to restrain

The quest of foes, and prompts my soul to brave

The desert's perils, that I may maintain

The conscience free, 'gainst those who would enslave-Wait till the storm shall cease to sweep the plain, And we are doomed to cross yon heaving main."

XXXIV.

No more he said, for she in silence went

From place to place until her task was o'er;
Williams, the whilst, the fleeting moments spent,
To scrawl a message to delay the more-
Aye to beguile the beagles on the scent,

Till he had gained the distant wilds secure-
And hope, perchance, still vain illusions lent,
Friendship might plead, and bigotry relent.

XXXV.

Then he to Heaven his weeping spouse commends—
Implores its blessings on his purpose bold;
Salem still sleeps, and forth our founder wends
To breast the driving storm and chilling cold;

His wife remains, and from the window sends

A glance that all her heaving bosom told—-
Dimly she marks him as his course he bends
O'er the white fields, and to'ard the woods extends.

XXXVI.

To show him parting, to the light she rears

His child unconscious yet of human 'wo, And oft its guileless silver voice she hears,

"Oh! Where goes father through the driving snow." Deeply her bosom at its accents stirs,

"He does my child to the wild red men go, To seek protection from hard brethren here, For thee and me and all to him that's dear." XXXVII.

So forth he ventured-even like the dove

Which earliest left the angel guarded ark; On weary pinions hovered she above

The vast of waters, heaving wild and dark, Over waste realms of death, whilst still she strove Some peak emergent from the flood to mark, Where she might rest above the billows' sweep, And build a stormy home 'mid that unquiet deep.

XXXVIII.

In boundless forests now our founder trod,

And South-west far his doubtful course he took ; The lofty pines and cedars round him nod

Loud roars the tempest through the leafless oak;
Deep lies the snow upon the frozen sod,

And still the storms descending torrents choke
The Heavens above; and only fancy could,
So dim the view, conceive the solitude

XXXIX.

Of the wide forests that before him lay :

His ever steady onward pace alone

Told that from home he lengthened yet his way,

Whilst the like forms-the same drear hollow moan,

Seemed lingering around him yet to stay,
And every step of progress to disown;
As with all sail the bark the current may
Labor against, whilst still its downward sway

XL.

Impedes her course, and makes all labor vain.
So to our father seemed his journeying now;
Yet still he toiled-and still did he sustain

The same firm spirit.-Think ye he would bow,
Or yield to sufferings of corporeal pain,

Whom God had summoned from the bigot's slough To plant Religious Freedom, and maintain Her standard firm on fair Mooshausick's plain !

XLI.

Above his head the branches writhe and bend,
Or in the mingled wreck their ruin flies—
The storm redoubles, and the whirlwinds blend

The rising snow-drift with descending skies;
And oft the crags a friendly shelter lend

His breathless bosom, and his sightless eyes; But, when the transient gust its fury spends, He through the storm again upon his journey wends.

XLII.

Still truly does his course the magnet keep—

No toils fatigue him, and no fears appal;
Oft turns he at the glimpse of swampy deep,
Or thicket dense, or crag abrupt and tall,
Or backward treads to shun the headlong steep,
Or pass above the tumbling waterfall;

Yet still he joys whene'er the torrent's leap,

Or crag abrupt, or thicket dense, or swamp's far sweep

XLIII.

Assures him progress,-From gray morn till noon-
Hour after hour-from that drear noon until

The evening's gathering darkness had begun
To clothe with deeper glooms the vale and hill,

Sire Williams journeyed in the forest lone;

And then night's thickening shades began to fill His soul with doubt-for shelter had he noneAnd all the out-stretched waste was clad with one

XLIV.

Vast mantle hoar. And he began to hear

At times the fox's bark, and the fierce howl
Of wolf, sometimes afar-sometimes so near,
That in the very glen they seemed to prowl
Where now he, wearied, paused-and then his ear
Started to note some shaggy monster's growl,
That from his snow-clad rocky den did peer,
Shrunk with gaunt famine in that tempest drear,

XLV.

And scenting human blood-yea, and so nigh,
Thrice did our northern tiger seem to come,
He thought he heard the fagots crackling by,
And saw, through driven snow and twilight gloom,
Peer from the thickets his fierce burning eye,
Scanning his destined prey, and through the broom,
Thrice stealing on his ears the whining cry
Swelled by degrees above the tempest high.

XLVI.

Wayworn he stood-and fast that stormy night
Was gathering round him over hill and dale-
He glanced around and by the lingering light
Found he had paused within a narrow vale;
On either hand a snow-clad rocky height

Ascended high, a shelter from the gale,
Whilst deep between them, in thick glooms bedight,
A swampy dingle caught the wanderer's sight.

XLVII.

Through the white billows thither did he wade,
And deep within its silent bosom trod,
There on the snow his oft repeated tread
Hardened a flooring for his night's abode ;

All there was calm, for the thick branches made

A skreen above, and round him closely stood
The trunks of cedars, and of pines arrayed
To the rude tempest, a firm barricade.

XLVIII.

And now his hatchet, with resounding stroke,
Hewed down the boscage that around him rose,
And the dry pine of brittle branches struck,

To yield him fuel for the night's repose:
The gathered heap an ample store bespoke—
He smites the steel-the tinder brightly glows,
And the fired match the kindled flame awoke,
And light upon night's seated darkness broke.

XLIX.

High branched the pines, and far the colonnade

Of tapering trunks stood glimmering through the glen ; Then joyed our father in this lonely glade,

So far from haunts of persecuting men, That he might break of honesty the bread,

And blessings crave in his own way again-Of the piled brush a seat and board he made, Spread his plain fare and piously he prayed.

L.

"Father of mercies! thou the wanderer's guide, In this dire storm along the howling waste, Thanks for the shelter thou dost here provide,

Thanks for the mercies of the day that's past; Thanks for the frugal fare thou hast supplied;

And Oh! may still thy tender mercies last ;May the delusion of our race subside,

That chains man's conscience to the ruler's pride.

LI.

Grant that thy humble instrument still shun

His persecutors in their eager quest ;

Grant the asylum, yet to be begun,
To persecution's exiles yield a rest;