Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/128

 And unrelenting bigot ne'er essay To make the free-born spirit quail with fear At threat of scourge, or banishment or death, For free belief, the soul's sustaining breath.

VIII.

Day after day does he his toil renew; From dawn till dark still doth his axe resound, And falling cedars still the valley strew, Or cumber with their trunks the littered ground; The solid beams and rafters does he hew, Or labors hard to roll or heave them round; Or squares their sides, or shapes the joints aright To match their fellows and the whole unite.

IX.

The beams now hewn, he frames the building square, Each joint adjusting to its counterpart— Tier over tier with labor does he bear, Timber on timber closes every part, Except where door or lattice to the air A passage yields,—and from the walls now start The rafters, matted over and between,— Against the storm and cold,—with rushes green.

X.

Long did this task his patient cares engage, 'Twas labor strange to hands like his, I ween, That had far oftener turned the sacred page 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!