Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/59

 LXVII.

At last a sound like murmurs from the shore Of far-off ocean, when the storm is bound, Grows on his ear, increasing more and more As he advances, till the woods resound And seem to tremble with the constant roar Of many waters—Ay, the very ground Beneath him quivers,—and, through arching trees Bright glimmering and gliding on, he sees

LXVIII.

The river flowing to its dizzy steep 'Twixt fringing forests, from so far as sight Can track its course, and, rushing, oversweep The rocky precipice all frothy white, With noise like thunder in its headlong leap, And springing sun-bows o'er its showery flight, And bursting into foam, tumultuous go Down the deep chasm, to smoke and boil below.

LXIX.

Thence, hurrying onward through the narrow bound Of banks precipitous, its torrents go, Till by the jutting cliffs half wheeling round, They pass from sight among the hills below. There paused our Father, ravished with the sound Of the wild waters, and their rapid flow, And there, alone, rejoiced that he had found Thy Falls, Pawtucket, and where Seekonk wound.

LXX.

And as he dallied on its margin still, His restless thought did on the future pause: Here might his children drive the busy mill, Here whirl the stones, here clash the riving saws;