Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/126

 CANTO SIXTH.

[ Seekonk's Mead, or Place of the First Settlement.]

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 tossing 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, Each swollen brook a foaming torrent brawls, Old Seekonk murmurs, and from every hill Answer aloud the coming waterfalls; Deep-voiced Pawtucket thunders louder still,— To dark Mooshausick joyously he calls, Who breaks his bondage, and through forests brown Murmurs the hoarse response and rolls his tribute down.

III.

But hark! that sound, above the cataracts And hollow winds in this wild solitude, Seems passing strange.—Who with the laboring axe, On Seekonk's eastern marge, invades the wood? Stroke follows stroke;—some sturdy hind attacks Yon ancient groves, which from their birth have stood Unmarred by steel, and, startled at the sound, The wild deer snuffs the gales,—then, with a bound,