Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/26

 XXXV.

To show him parting, to the light she rears His child, yet ignorant of human woe; And soon its guileless silver voice she hears, "O! where is father going in the snow?" The tender accents start the mother's tears, "He does, my child, to barbarous red men go, To seek protection from hard brethren here For thee and me, and all to him that's dear."

XXXVI.

So forth he ventured;—even like the dove That earliest from the window of the ark, Went forth on venturous wings, to soar above The world of waters heaving wild and dark O'er sunken realms of death, the while she strove Some high emergent mountain peak to mark, Where she might rest, beyond the billow's sweep, And build herself a home amid the deep.

XXXVII.

The boundless forests now our Founder trod, And due southwestwardly his course he took; The lofty pines and cedars round him nod,— Loud roars the tempest through the leafless oak; The snow lies deep upon the frozen sod, And still the storm's descending torrents choke The heavens above; and only fancy could,— So dim the view,—conceive the solitude

XXXVIII.

Of the wide forests that before him lay: His ever steady onward pace alone Told that from home he lengthened yet his way, While the same forms—the same drear hollow moan,