Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/81

 Of their fierce fathers; and the savage soul, Nursed e'en in youth on thoughts in carnage dyed, Instinctively, with simultaneous swell, Sent from their lips the unfledged battle yell.

LXIV.

Their little bows they twanged with threatening mien, Their little war-clubs shook to tell their ires; Their mimic scalping-knives they brandished keen, And acted o'er the stories of their sires; And had their fathers at this moment seen (For they were gone to Potowomet's fires), Our Founder's guide, they might have caught the tone Of their young urchins, and the hatchet thrown.

LXV.

Still village after village smoked; the woods All swarmed with life as forward still they fared; For numbers great, but not for multitudes So numberless, had Williams been prepared; Was it for him to tamper with the moods Of these fierce savages, whose arms were bared, Whose souls were ripe, and stalwart bodies trim, For the wild revelry of slaughter grim?

LXVI.

How could he hope a safe abiding place, Far in these forests, and his friends so few— Among a wild and blood-besotted race, That naught of laws divine or human knew; Their wars proceeding oft from mad caprice, Their hearts as hard 's the tomahawks they threw:— Would his temerity by Heaven be blest? Would God nurse zephyrs on the whirlwind's breast?