Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/122

 Embrowned by fringing woods;—here molten gold, Gleaming and glittering in the setting sun, They glance by Haup—there, eastward as they pour, They cleave Aqiudnay from Pocasset's shore.

LXVIII.

That rude Pocasset—which, when Williams saw From towering Haup, did one broad forest shew; Here, steep o'er steep, there, leaving Nature's law, Hill, glade, and swamp,—presenting to the view So mad a maze, that there, if hunter draw His sounding bow, and but a space pursue The wounded deer, he finds his guidance fail, And lost, halloos through tangled brake and dale.

LXIX.

Yet the rude wigwams smoked from many a glade, Where near the shore the oaks were branching wide, Where future gardens might invite the spade, Or furrowing plough the fertile glebe divide, And where, still south, the hills retiring made More ample meadows by the glassy tide; Till far Seaconnet showed her rim of rock, Whereon the ocean's rolling billows broke.

LXX.

But on Aquidnay dwelt our Founder's gaze, Enraptured still. "Would Seekonk's mead compare With yon wild Eden?" While he thus delays, The old chief's hand does on his bosom bear, As he explains: "Another sachem sways The isle of peace. All Haup's dominions are Stretched tow'rd the God of frost—look there and choose; All thou hast won, and well a part mayst use."