Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/185

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Be it the Pequot in his numbers proud,
  I hold his greeting in this glittering spear;
But oh! perchance my brother seeks this place,
To share with us the sacred rites of peace?"


XXIX.

"Not so, brave chief; it is to seek a home,
  By seer announced, by Heaven to me assigned;
Yonder abode lies wrapt in sable gloom,
  Not of the Pequot, but the Plymouth kind;
My promised harvest blighted in the bloom,
  My voiceless roof,—all, all have I resigned,
And hither come to seek Mooshausick's plain,
And beg the gift once proffered me in vain."


XXX.

Good Massasoit, who did these accents hear,
  Would now our Founder greet,—and with a face,
That spoke a sorrow deep and most sincere:
  "Long have I strove," he said, "in thought to trace
What Manit most my Plymouth friends revere;
  For aye their deeds their better words efface,
Their tongues much speak of Spirit good and great,
Their hands much do the work of Chepian's hate."


XXXI.

Here grave Canonicus came from the throng,—
  "Welcome, my son!" exclaimed the aged chief,
"Bear thou the inflictions of thy kindred's wrong
  With man's stout courage, not with woman's grief;
The lands thou seëst shall to thee belong,
  And for thy comforts lost, a moment brief
Shall all the loss repair;—o'er yonder height
Is where till lately Chepian reigned in might.