Oliver Newman A New-England Tale (Unfinished): With Other Poetical Remains. By the late Robert Southey |
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| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
| VI. | VI.
FUTURE PROSPECTS. |
| VII. |
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| X. |
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 | Oliver Newman |  |
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VI. FUTURE PROSPECTS.
LEVERETT.Why hast thou ventured hither? With what hope
Or end hath natural piety betray'd thee
To this forlorn attempt? If to escape
Had offer'd chance enough to tempt despair,
The desperate effort had ere this been tried.
Besure, it hath been meditated oft,
And bravely; and, had life been all the stake,
Life had been cheaply set upon the die,
To lose it being gain.
OLIVER.
They must forego,
The dear desire of e'er revisiting
Their native land,—and in my mother's grave
That hope, I ween, will now be laid at rest:
Nor could they safely seek a resting-place
In Europe, even if we reach'd a ship,
And left these shores behind us. Oft and well
Have I perpended this, devising ways
For flight, and schemes of plausible disguise,
Such thoughts in disappointment ending alway;
Till having offer'd up in fervent faith
A disciplined and humbled heart to Heaven,
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Is open to us! Thither will we go,
Far in the wilds, where foot of Englishman
Hath never trod. The equal elements
Will not deny our portion: Mother Earth
In unappropriated freedom, there
Holds forth her liberal lap; her springs, her fruits,
Her creatures of the land and air and stream,
To her free children freely offering.
Hid from the world, a double duty there
May I perform, to God and man discharged,
Serving my human and my Heavenly Sire;
There, treading in your saintly Eliot's path,
Guide the poor Indian in the way to Heaven!
And, in the foretaste of its joys assured,
Receive mine own exceeding great reward.
LEVERETT.
Oh pitiable lot
Of poor humanity,
When virtue thus can wrong the heroic heart,
And blind the noble intellect! Thou dreamest
Of peopling some Arcadian solitude
With human angels,—ignorant, alas!
Of time, place, circumstance, and men, and things,—
The Indians, and thy father, and thyself!
OLIVER.
Myself at least I know, prepared to act
Or suffer, with a soul for all events
Resign'd.
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To suffer, rightly thou may'st say;
Easily we screw our courage to that point,
The issue being remote, and hope and chance
Between us and the event.
But how prepared to act? Ere thou couldst hold
With these Red tribes the commonest discourse
Of needful things and every-day concerns,
Years of laborious pupilage must pass,
Unless the cloven flame upon thy head
Should light, and loose thy speech by miracle.
But wherefore with the show of difficulties
Should I dissuade thee from an enterprise
Impossible to attempt?
OLIVER.
A Poet, sir,
In whose dark sayings deeper wisdom lies
Than ancient oracles enounced, or statesmen
Appear to reach in these ignoble times,
Hath taught me to believe, “impossible
Is but the faith of fear.”
LEVERETT.
Are poets, then,
Thy teachers? O, young man, their flattering lore
But ill prepares the spirit for the uses
Of ordinary life!
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They best prepare it,
Who warn the heart against its own illusions;
And, strengthening it with patient hope and faith,
Arm it against all issues. To such teachers
My inexperienced youth by Providence
Was mercifully led. Penn hath allow'd me
To call him friend, in no sectarian use
Of words; and I have sate at Milton's feet
A reverential listener.
LEVERETT.
Milton's friendship
Will neither hurt nor help thee in a land,
Where they, who stiffliest hold his errors, lift not
Their thoughts above the earth to follow him,
When his strong spirit mounts upon the wing,
Beyond their grovelling vision. But well is it
Thou hast not from Penn's dangerous fellowship
Learnt his sectarian speech, and other follies
Wherewith that formal informality
Provokes the law. New England writes her statutes
In blood against the Quakers. Thou hast 'scaped
Their clownish and uncivil usages;
But if there be an inner taint, take heed
To keep it hidden: openly I must not
Allow the violation of our laws.
OLIVER.
Oh we have trespass'd largely on your goodness;
Generous beyond example, as thou art,
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The dreadful cause alone, can palliate
Conduct like ours towards thee. Not for worlds
Would I do aught that might displeasure thee,
Best earthly friend! whom my dear mother never
Named without tears, and holiest gratitude,
Such as will surely bring upon thy head
The blessing that it pray'd for. I come here,
Not wilfully and madly to provoke
Intolerant laws, nor farther to presume
Upon thy noble nature; but to thank thee,
In her dear name, for all which thou hast done;
To tell thee, as she charged me, that in death
She bless'd thee for thy goodness; and, performing
Her latest wish and will, to take the burthen
Of our unhappy fortunes on myself.
LEVERETT.
Her latest wish and will!
OLIVER.
It was a thought
Which added to her griefs, that you should stand
In jeopardy for us; howbeit, she said,
She hoped and felt and trusted that you knew
Her inmost mind, and Heaven would recompense
A true affection, too severely tried.
LEVERETT.
Thus it was ever with her gentle heart,
By some strange fortune fated still to prove
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Of her sole weakness lay.
Poor heart! a victim always at the call
Of fancied duty; only then unjust,
Only then obstinate, when offering up
Itself a bleeding sacrifice! I know,
And understand, in what devoted mood
Her acquiescence to thy dreams was given
Such as aspiring saints desire, and martyrs
Reach in their triumph, when they clasp the stake.
OLIVER.
'Twas in no height of feverish exaltation,
In no delusion of the heated mind,
That her consent was given: but mutually
Our hearts received, as I believe, from Heaven
The impulse. By the test of prayer we tried,
And in the balance of the sanctuary
Weighed it; and having taken our resolve,
Partook that inward peace, wherewith the Spirit
Doth set the seal to its authentic acts.
Shake not thy head thus mournfully, nor thus
In disapproval knit the incredulous brow!
The purpose, which at first was entertain'd
With doubtfulness and fear, increased in strength,
While long infirmity and wasting pain
Consumed her mortal mould; and at that hour,
When it is no illusion to believe
That the departing soul hath sight of heaven
Opening before its happy flight, and feels
The expansion of diviner faculties
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Confirm'd the injunction of her latest voice,
And bless'd, and for obedience strengthen'd me,
Betide what may.
LEVERETT.
For me, then, it remains
Only to show what obstacles impede
The perilous course from which I must not farther
Essay to turn thee. Thou, who art not less
In mind than lineaments thy mother's image,
Judge for thyself if they be superable.
Thy grandsire lives, indeed,—if it be life,
When the poor flesh, surviving, doth entomb
The reasonable soul defunct. Below
The reach of grief and danger he hath sunk.
The tale of his dear daughter's death to him
Will be like baptism to a chrysome babe,
Something that means he knows and recks not what.
Safely in court might he hold up the hand,
Now trembling and unconscious, which subscribed
The fatal warrant: even the sword of law
Would, in his pitiable estate, acknowledge
The visitation of a higher Power,
And turn away its edge. But as thou canst not,
Encumber'd with a twichild man, pursue
Thy purpose, it must of necessity
Be laid aside, at least till death remove
The impediment, not else removeable.
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So be it. We must patiently await
The hour of his release. With time and death
Sure reckoning may be made.
LEVERETT.
That hour in truth
Cannot be long delay'd. But what shall make
Thy father to thy dreams defer his own?
If in his corporal uses man becomes
The slave of habit, stronger are the chains
In which the mind is bound, a willing thrall.
OLIVER.
I understand you not!
LEVERETT.
You do not know
Your father.
OLIVER.
Only by report, alas!
As England in his years of fortune knew him;
Religious, faithful, excellently skill'd
In war, and in his single person brave
To all men's admiration.
LEVERETT.
Yet I think
Enthusiast as thou art, thou needest not
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Of virtues is too often found combined.
'Tis the condition of humanity,
Frail and infirm at best; and they who boast
Sinless perfection for their privilege,
By the proud folly of the claim, confute
Their own insane pretension.
OLIVER.
Surely, sir,
My father had not in the school of Christ
So poorly profited, nor lived so long
A stranger to himself and his own heart,
That he should hold this error.
LEVERETT.
Glad I am
Thou seest it erroneous. Other notions
He holds too near akin to it, the breed
Of those pestiferous and portentous times
Wherein his lot had fallen. Even yet he thinks
The kingdom of the saints shall be in strength
Establish'd; finds in whatsoe'er occurs
The accomplishment of some dark prophecy;
Interprets, and expounds, and calculates
That soon he shall be call'd to bear his part
In setting up again the broken work
Left incomplete by chosen Oliver.
Thus he in one continuous dream of hope
Beguiles the tedious years.
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Herein I see not
What should impede my purpose. In the forest,
The sense of freedom and security,
Healing a wounded spirit, may restore
To health his mind diseased.
LEVERETT.
But if the patient
Reject the means of cure? He will not leave
A place of refuge which the Lord prepared
For him in his distress; and where full surely
He trusts the call will reach him, to come forth
And fight the battles of the good old cause,
For which he doth endure contentedly
This living martyrdom. Thy father thus
Would answer thee; the malady is rooted
In him so deeply now. It is become
Essential in his being: long success,
Beyond the most audacious of his thoughts,
Fed and inflamed it first; long suffering since
Hath as it were annealed it in his soul
With stubborn fortitude, bewilder'd faith,
Love, hatred, indignation, all strong passions,
The bitterest feelings, and the tenderest thoughts,
Yea, all his earthly, all his heavenly hopes.
And Russel—for such sympathy alone
Could influence him to harbour long such guests—
Fosters the old delusion which he shares,
And ministers to it, even in his prayers.
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My father will not be persuaded then,
You think?
LEVERETT.
I know he will not. There are minds,
The course of which, as of some slow disease,
Known by its fatal frequency too well,
We see with helpless foresight, hopelessly.
But, if he listen'd to thy moving words,
What would it now avail? The wilderness
Affords no shelter while the Indians,
Fiercer than beasts, and wilier, are in arms.
OLIVER.
I have a passport for the wilderness
Safer than statesmen could accord, or states
Enforce with all their strength. The Indian woman,
Of whom Sir Randolph in his mockery told thee:
She and her children will be my protection
Among the wildest tribes.
LEVERETT.
And was this thought, then,
Thy motive for the act?
OLIVER.
I will not say
It had so much of forethought: but the ways
Of Providence open before me now.
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To worldly censure, and which tremblingly
I follow'd, for this issue was design'd:
Oh doubt it not! And had I disobey'd
The inward and unerring monitor
That hour, infirm of faith, how had I then
Disherited myself of this fair hope!
LEVERETT.
A Narhaganset woman, is she not?
The widow of a Sagamore, who fell
In the outbreak of these troubles?
OLIVER.
So they told me;
A noted savage, Kawnacom his name.
LEVERETT.
Something, methinks, I see in this, wherein
Our purposes may square, and my straight path
Of policy with thy eccentric course
Fall in and meet at the end. But, understand me,
Rather would I for thine own sake dissuade thee,
And for the sake of that dear Saint in heaven,
From an adventure of remotest hope
And imminent peril: but if thy resolve
Be obstinate against all reason, blameless
Then may I, both in her sight and in thine,
Betide the issue how it will, promote
The purpose which in vain I disapprove.
One trust we have; all-able Providence
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Knowing the upright intention, rectify
Our erring judgments. Let the matter sleep
Till I have taken counsel with my pillow
And this night's waking thoughts. See me tomorrow
As early as you will, before the stir
Of business hath begun: and now farewell.
| Oliver Newman | |