Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/141

 XI.

And thus they past o'er many a rapid flow, Climbed many a hill—through many a valley wound, While wary Waban moved before them slow, And for their feet the smoothest pathway found; River and fen and miry waste and low, The floods had swollen to their utmost bound; Unbridged by frost, no passage do they show, And far about the anxious wanderers go.

XII.

The sun from middle skies now downward bent His course, and for a while on lofty ground They rested, and abroad their glances sent Far o'er the sea of forest that embrowned The landscape. The overarching firmament, The woody waste enclaspt with azure round, And yon bright sun, yon eagle soaring high, And yon lone wigwam's smoke, are all that cheer the eye.

XIII.

At times the eagle's scream trills from on high, At times the pecker taps the mouldering bough, Or the far raven wakes her boding cry,— All else is hushed the vast expanses through: And, ah! they feel in the immensity Of pathless wilds, around them and below, As in mid-ocean feels some shipwrecked crew, Borne wandering onward in the frail canoe.

XIV.

And something was there in red Waban's mien, Which all the morn had drawn our Founder's eyes; For still he spake not, and was often seen To bend his ear, or start as with surprise;