XXV.
Again Haup's Sachem broke the fearful pause:
"Brother, be wise; I gave thy brethren lands;
They smoked my pipe, and they espoused my cause;
They made me strong; and all the neighboring bands
Forsook the Narraganset Sachem's laws[1]
And mine obeyed.—We weakened hostile hands;
All dropt their arms and looked, but looked in vain,
For my white friends to measure back the main.
XXVI.
"This leaf, which budded of their hope, now dies;
The Narraganset warriors crest their hair;
Their hatchets keen from troubled slumber rise
And through Coweset make their edges glare;
Chiefs strike the war-post,—blood is in their cries,
And fierce their yells cleave Pokanoket's air;
They count already with revengeful eyes
The future scalps of vanquished enemies;—
XXVII.
"And all for Wampanoag's life-blood crave.
On Seekonk's marge the storm of war will burst;
Lands might I give thee there but that the wave
Will there run red with human slaughter first.
And yet my brother and his friends are brave;
His bulwarks there with guardian thunders pierced,
Might frown on harm;—for surely he would fight
Both for his own and for the giver's right.
XXVIII.
"And when the Narragansets by our arms
Are from the Seekonk driven far away,
No more molested by the wild alarms
Of scalping knife and tomahawk's affray,
- ↑ See notes to Canto Fourth.
