LXXIV.
Charmed with the scene, our sire explored the place,
And penetrated deep the thickets round;
At length his vision opened on a space
Level and broad, and stretching without bound
Southward afar; nor rose o'er all its face
A tree, or shrub, or rock, or swelling mound;
Yet, in large herds dotting the snows, appear,
With antic gambols, the far bounding deer;
LXXV.
And, further down, the Narraganset flood,
Unfurrowed yet by keel—its fretted blue
With isles begemmed, and skirted by the wood
Of far Coweset,—opens on his view;
So long he had beneath the forest trod,
That, when the prospect on his vision grew,
His soul as from a prison seemed to fly
And range in thought through an immensity.
LXXVI.
Raptured he paused.—Here then was Waban's mead;
In yonder little glen, the fountain by,
He'd rear his shelter—here his flocks should feed,
Cropping the grass beneath the summer sky;
There by his cot he'd sow the foodful seed,
And round his garden raise a paling high;
And there at twilight, should his herds be seen,
Following the tinkling bell from pastures green.
LXXVII.
Ay, here, in fancy, did he almost see
A lovely hamlet in the future blest,
Where Christians all might mutually agree
To leave their God to judge the human breast;
