Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/72

 XXXII.

"Yengee! thou seest these Wampanoags brave— They are my Keenomps in the battle fray; Would it become Haup's sagamore to crave  Inglorious rest for warriors strong as they? They shrink from nothing but a dastard's grave:  Bound to the stake, upon their lips would play The smile of scorn. How can they crouch and cry For peace?"—he said; and Williams made reply:

XXXIII.

"The Great Spirit, almighty o'er the Whole, Wields earth at will and moulds the hearts of men; At his command torrents may backward roll,  The hare may gambol in the panther's den; In Him I trust, and in His strength my soul  Is more than armies.—Let your brother then Ask for himself, if not for thee or thine, That on these lands the sky of peace may shine.

XXIV.

"How could your brother plant, where all around War's tempest raging pours its showers of blood? Where from each thicket bursts the war-whoop's sound,  And death in ambush lurks in every wood? When would the feet of his dear friends be found  To pass along the blood-stained solitude, And bring their all—their dearer far than life— Beneath uplifted axe and scalping knife?"

XXXV.

Upon our Father's words to meditate, That wise old chief kept silence for a space; Thus far he had prolonged the shrewd debate, And inly striven his bounties to retrace—