Pleasant it was, and mournful was it too, To see the matron leading by the hand, From all their joys to toils and dangers new, That innocent and happy infant band; For, hand in hand, did they their way pursue, With childish wonder, toward the distant land;-- As little witting of the ills that wait, As that their labors were to found a State. IX. Soon Waban passed him where concealed he stood, And slowly led his docile charge along; Then Mary stept into the dusky wood, Still guiding, as she came, the prattling throng; No longer viewless he his darlings viewed, But, wild with rapture, from the thicket sprung: “Oh, father! father!” burst the children’s cry, And Mary claspt him in her ecstacy. X. But short the transport--soon must they resume The weary march, and from the dawning gray Hour after hour, to pensive evening’s gloom, Through the lone forest wend their devious way; O’er river, vale, and steep, through brake and broom, And rough ravine, with aching steps they stray; The father’s arms oft bore the lovely weight, Or on the palfrey’s back the weariest sate. XI. And thus they past o’er many a rapid flow, Climbed many a hill--through many a valley wound, While wary Waban moved before them slow, And for their feet the smoothest pathway found; River and fen and miry waste and low, The floods had swollen to their utmost bound; Unbridged by frost, no passage do they show, And far about the anxious wanderers go. XII. The sun from middle skies now downward bent His course, and for a while on lofty ground They rested, and abroad their glances sent Far o’er the sea of forest that embrowned The landscape. The overarching firmament, The woody waste enclaspt with azure round, And yon bright sun, yon eagle soaring high, And yon lone wigwam’s smoke, are all that cheer the eye. XIII. At times the eagle’s scream trills from on high, At times the pecker taps the mouldering bough, Or the far raven wakes her boding cry,-- All else is hushed the vast expanses through: And, ah! they feel in the immensity Of pathless wilds, around them and below, As in mid-ocean feels some shipwrecked crew, Borne wandering onward in the frail canoe. XIV. And something was there in red Waban’s mien, Which all the morn had drawn our Founder’s eyes; For still he spake not, and was often seen To bend his ear, or start as with surprise; And now he stood, and, through the thicket’s screen, The shadowy prospect seemed to scrutinize, Then paused, unmoving, till a far-off howl Did, with long echoes, through the stillness roll. XV.