Oh, blue hills of New England, slanting to the morning beams Where suns and clouds of April have their balmy power sped; Oh, greening woods and meadows, pleasant ponds and babbling streams, And clematis soft-blooming where War once his banners led; How hungers many an exile for that homeland far away, And all the happy dreaming of a bygone April day! Wherever speaks New England, wheresoever spreads her shade, We praise our fathers' valor, and our fathers' prayer is said, That, fearing God's Wrath only, firm may stand the State they made. WALLACE RICE. The victory at Sudbury was the last considerable success the Indians gained in the war. Jealousies broke out among them, many deserted to the whites, and the final blow was struck when, at daybreak of August 12, 1676, Captain Church surprised Philip's camp at Mt. Hope, and Philip himself was shot by an Indian while trying to escape. His head was cut off, sent to Plymouth, and fixed upon a pole, where it remained for twenty years. His wife and son, a boy of nine, were taken prisoners and sold into slavery. With them, the race of Massasoit, that true and tried friend of the early settlers, vanishes from the pages of history. KING PHILIP'S LAST STAND [August 12, 1676] 'Twas Captain Church, bescarred and brown, And armèd cap-a-pie. Came ambling into Plymouth-town; And from far riding up and down A weary man was he. _Now, where is my good wife?_ he quoth Before the goodmen all; And they replied, _What of thine oath?_ And he looked on them lorn and loath, As he were like to fall. _What of thine oath?_ to him they cried, _And wilt thou let him slip Who harrieth fair New England-side Till every path is slaughter-dyed,-- The murderous King Philip!_ His cheek went flush and swelled his girth; _Upon him be God's ban!_ His voice ran loud in grisly mirth: _Now, who with me will run to earth This bloody Indiàn?_ Then _I!_ and _I!_ the lusty peal Made thrill the Plymouth air; And forth with him for woe or weal, Their hands agrip on musket-steel, Hied many a godly pair. They sped them through the summer-land By ferry and by ford, Until they saw before them stand A redman of that cursèd band, His features ochre-scored. _Would the pale-faces find_, he said, _Where lurks their fiercest foe? Now, by the spirit of the dead,-- My brother, whose heart's blood he shed,-- Follow, and they shall know!_ This Indian brave, they followed him; In caution crawled and crept; Till in a marish deep and dim They came to where the Sachem grim In leafy hiding slept. (The quiet August morn's at bud, King Philip, woe's the day! And woe that one of thine own blood, Now that ill-fortune roars to flood, Should be the man to slay!)