Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/64

 IV.

The eagle's plumes waved round his hair of jet, Whose crest-like lock played lightly o'er his head; On breast and face the war-paints harshly met, Down from his shoulders hung his blanket red, With seeming blood his hatchet haft was wet,— Its edge of death was by his girdle stayed; Bright flashed his eyes, and, ready for the strife, Gleamed in his hand the dreadful scalping-knife.

V.

He placed a packet, bound, in Williams' hands, And fired his pipe, and sitting, curled its smoke, The while our Founder broke the hempen bands, And gave the contents an exploring look. There found he, answered, all his late commands To Waban, ere the wigwam he forsook; And from his wife a brief epistle too, Which told her sorrows since their last adieu:

VI.

How came the messengers with arméd men To search her mansion for "the heretic;" How his escape provoked their wrath—and then How they condemned him for his feigning sick; But with the thought consoled themselves again, That he had perished in the tempest thick; God's righteous retribution, setting free Their Israel from his heinous heresy.

VII.

But, as he reads, the warrior starting cries, "War! war! my brother."—Willliams drops his hand, And at the voice perceives, in altered guise Till now unknown, the generous Waban stand