This heart grows big—it cannot ask for peace;
'Twould rather rot upon a gory bed
Than hear the spirits of its sires complain,
And call for blood,—but ever call in vain."
LXXI.
"Waban," said Williams, "dost thou fear to go?
Wilt thou thy Yengee sachem leave alone?
How will thy Sagamore the speeches know,
If homeward now his messenger should run?
Not thou, but I will ask the haughty foe
To quench his fires, and quell the dance begun;
But for thy safety, thou the calumet
Shalt bear beside me, till the chiefs are met."
LXXII.
"Waban," he answered, "never shook with fear,
Nor left his Sachem when he needed friends;
It is the thought of many a by-gone year
That kindles wrath within my breast, and sends
Through all this frame, my boiling blood on fire!—
Still Waban on his pale-faced chief attends,
But bears no pipe;—the Wampanoag's pride
Bids him to die, as his brave fathers died."
LXXIII.
"Waban, at least, will smoke the pipe awhile?"
Said Williams gravely to his moody guide,
"Its fragant breath is as on billows oil;
It calms the troubled waves of memory's tide."
The grateful offer seemed to reconcile
The peaceful emblem to the warrior's pride:
He fills the bowl—he wakes the kindling fire—
And o'er his head the curling clouds aspire.
