Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/61

 LXXIV.

Charmed with the scene, our sire explored the place, And penetrated deep the thickets round; At length his vision opened on a space Level and broad, and stretching without bound Southward afar; nor rose o'er all its face A tree, or shrub, or rock, or swelling mound; Yet, in large herds dotting the snows, appear, With antic gambols, the far bounding deer;

LXXV.

And, further down, the Narraganset flood, Unfurrowed yet by keel—its fretted blue With isles begemmed, and skirted by the wood Of far Coweset,—opens on his view; So long he had beneath the forest trod, That, when the prospect on his vision grew, His soul as from a prison seemed to fly And range in thought through an immensity.

LXXVI.

Raptured he paused.—Here then was Waban's mead; In yonder little glen, the fountain by, He'd rear his shelter—here his flocks should feed, Cropping the grass beneath the summer sky; There by his cot he'd sow the foodful seed, And round his garden raise a paling high; And there at twilight, should his herds be seen, Following the tinkling bell from pastures green.

LXXVII.

Ay, here, in fancy, did he almost see A lovely hamlet in the future blest, Where Christians all might mutually agree To leave their God to judge the human breast;