Fain had I spared thee this deep searching pain,
By showing thee thy dangerous heresy;
It may not be; hence, therefore, must thou speed;
The Narragansets may protect thy ereed."
XLIII.
To breathless statues turned the listeners stood,
Silent as marble and as cold and pale;
With vacant gaze our Sire the Elder viewed,
O'erwhelmed, confounded by this sudden bale;
As when some swain, deep in the sheltering wood,
Ere he has seen the tempest on the gale,
Marks the bright flash; the smitten senses reel;
He stands confounded ere he learns to feel.
XLIV.
At length reviving from the stunning shock,
His thoughts returning in a broken train,
Our Founder thus the speechless stupor broke:—
"I to my ancient friend may yet explain;
Just is my title here; the lands I took
Are part of Massasoit's wide domain,
And fairly purchased; mine they dearly are;
Make this but known, and Plymouth must forbear."
XLV.
"And didst thou think," the Elder cried, "to win
Of Pagan chief a title here secure?
Why not derive it from that man of sin
At papal Rome,—the Antichrist impure?
Our Church of Truth, against the Heathen thin,
Asserts her Canaan, and will make it sure.
Thy purchase feigned was by the Prophet shown
To Dudley, and by him to us made known."
