CANTO SECOND.

It was the morning of a Sabbath day,

When Williams rose to Waban's simple cheer, But where, knew not, save that vast forests lay Betwixt his home and the lone wigwam here;" Yet 'twas a place of peace, no thing of clay,

"Twixt God and conscience in communion near, Came, with profane and impious control,

To check the heavenward wanderings of his soul.

II.

God loves the wilderness-in deserts lone,

Where all is silent-where no living thing

Mars the hushed solitudes-where Heaven looks down,
And Earth looks up, each as if marvelling
That aught should be, and, through the vast unknown,
Thought-breathing silence seems as uttering

The present God-there does he rear his throne,
And tranced in boundless thoughts the soul doth own,

III.

And feel his strength within.—This day, once more,
In place thus sacred; did our founder keep;
None, save the Deity he bent before,

Marked the devotions of his feelings deep-
None do I say? yet there was Waban poor;

Alas! his mind in utter night did sleep; He saw our founder at his earnest prayer, Yet knew not why his supplications were.

IV.

Yet earnestly the pious man besought,

That Heaven would give to shed the gospel light, On the kind pagan's breast, as yet untaught,

Save in the ways of an Egyptian night;

And much he prayed, that to the truth when brought,
Washed of his sins in garments pure and white,
He might assist to soothe each savage train,
And win a home for persecuted men.

V.

Williams the task of goodness now essayed,
To light the wanderer with religion true;
The tenfold darkness, that his soul arrayed,

Concealed its workings from our founder's view;
Save when some query rare, and strangely made,
Did its dream-wildered wakening instinct shew-
Long was the task; and Williams back began,
At Earth's creation and the fall of man.

VI.

He told how God from nothing formed the earth,
And gave each being shape surpassing fair;
How He in Eden, at their happy birth,

Placed with kind blessings the first human pair;

How, disobeying, they were driven forth,

And they, and theirs, consigned to sad despairUntil the God incarnate pitying gave

Himself for man, and made it just to save.

VII.

Then told he how the blessed martyrs bore
The chains of dungeons, and the fagot's flame,
Glad that their sufferings might attest the more

To their full faith in their Redeemer's name-
How his disciples past from shore to shore,

Salvation's joyful tidings to proclaim;
How hither now they brought the Gospel's light
To cheer the red men, wrapt in pagan night.

VIII.

Waban attentive heard our Founder's strain,
And at its pause he long in silence sate ;
A graver tone did o'er his visage reign,

And all his heart's deep feelings indicate.
At length he vented thus the mental train-
"Weak is my soul and dark is her estate!
No book has she to tell of Manit high,
Except this outstretched earth and starry sky.

IX.

Great news Awanux brings the red men here—
News, that doth far their legends old excel;
Yet give to Waban the attentive ear,

And the traditions of his sires he'll tell,
From days afar, down many a rolling year—
Down to thy brothers red, their fathers' tale
Comes to inform them in their mortal state,
What powers they should revere or deprecate.

X.

Here Waban paused, and, sitting, mused a space,

As pondering gravely on the mighty theme; Deep thought was graven in his solemn face,

And dimly did his groping memory seem Gathering the scattered legends of his race.

At length he roused, as from a passing dream, And from his mat, majestically slow,

Reared his tall form, and thus began in accents low.

66

XI.

Brother, that time is distant-far away,

When Earth and every living thing was not,

Save our great God, Cawtantowit, who lay

Extended through immensity, where naught Save shoreless waters were-and dead were theyNo living thing did on their bosom floatAnd silence all that boundless space did fill; For the Great Spirit slept—and all was still.

XII.

"But though he slept, yet, as the human soul To this small frame, his being did pervade The universal space, and ruled the whole,

E'en as the soul, when in deep slumber laid, Doth its wild fantasies and dreams control,

And giveth wild creation shape and shade Just as she wills. But the Great Spirit broke His sleep at last, and all the boundless shook.

XIII.

"In a vast eagle's form embodied, He

Did o'er the deep on outstretched pinions spring; Fire in his eye lit all immensity,

Whilst his majestically gliding wing

Trembled hoarse thunders to the shuddering sea;
And, through their utmost limits quivering,
The conscious waters felt their Manittoo,
And life, at once, their deepest regions knew.

XIV.

“The mountain whale came spouting from below,
The porpoise plunged along the foaming main,
The smaller broods in sporting myriads go,
With glancing backs, along the liquid plain ;
Yet still refused her giant form to show-
Ay, sullenly below did yet remain
Earth-bearing tortoise, the Unamis vast,
And o'er her back the lofty billows past.

XV.

"Then great Cawtantowit in his anger spoke,
And from his flaming eyes the lightnings past,
And from his wings the tenfold thunders broke.
The sullen tortoise heard his words at last-

And slowly she her rocky grasp forsook,

And her huge back of woods and mountains vast, From the far depths tow'rd upper light began

Slowly to heave-the affrighted waters ran

XVI.

"Hither and thither, tumultuous and far

But still Unamis, heaving from below

The full formed earth, first, through the waves did rear
The fast sky-climbing Allegany's brow,
Dark, vast and craggy-from its summits bare

The rolling billows fell—and rising now,

All its vast forest up the breezy air

Came out of Ocean, and, from verdure fair,

XVII.

"Shed the salt showers. Far o'er the deep,
Hills after hills still lift their clustered trees,
Wild down the rising slopes the waters leap,
Then from the up-surging plain the ocean flees,
Till lifted from the flood, in vale and steep,

And rock, and forest waving to the breeze,
Earth, on the tortoise borne, frowned ocean o'er,
And spurned the angry billows from her thundering shore.

XVIII.

"But great Cawtantowit, on his pinions still,
O'er the lone earth majestically sprung,
And whispered to the mountain, vale and hill,
And with new life the teeming regions rung;
The feathered songsters tuned their carols shrill,
Herds upon herds did plain and mountain throng;
In the still pools did the wise beavers toil,
And the armed seseks* did their folds uncoil.

XIX.

"Yet man was not-then great Cawtantowit spoke
To the hard mountain crags and called for man.
And sculptured, breathing, from the cleaving rock,
Sprang the armed warrior, and a strife began
With living things.-Hard as his native block,
Was his stone heart, and through it ran
Blood cold as ice—and the great spirit struck
This cruel man, and him to atoms broke.

*Sesek-rattlesnake.