The Ballad of William Goffe: Creative Platypus

The Ballad of William Goffe

I

Raise the cry in Narragansett

Sachem Philip treads the warpath

Come to drive out all the English

Burn their villages and townships.

Who has heard of old Sassacus

And the terrors of the Pequots

Knows but Philip’s little finger;

Like the bite of whips to scorpions

Are those sachems to his chieftains.

They will come with brands of fire

To the men who burned down Mystic.

Who of them shall bide his coming

In the hour of God’s judgment?

These the words that came to Hadley

With the fear of Philip’s legions,

Of the natives loosed upon them,

By the anger of Jehovah

At their arrogant presumption.

Now from feast they turn to fasting,

Turn from revelry to sorrow,

To beseech the Lord Almighty

That He turn from them his anger,

Spare them from the wrath of Philip,

From his sagamores and chieftains.

II

When the leaves first fell in autumn,

Came the rumor down to Hadley:

Now the natives are against you:

Mount the guards and stand your watches

For the Sachem Philip cometh

And his wrath is hot against ye.

So the men of Hadley labored

Night and day against his coming

Felled the trees and raised the fences

As a guard against his anger.

Thus the autumn turned to winter

And the winter into springtime

But the battle came no closer

And the citizens of Hadley

Now forsook their worthy labor

Left the guard and watchmen sleeping

All through April with her showers;

May and June came with the planting.

Then the call went down from Boston

To the councilmen of Hartford:

Send what men you have to aid us

For the native’s fury waxes

And his power is the greater.

May the Lord avert his coming

By the help that you may send us.

So the men of Hartford hastened

While the sun shone bright on Hadley

And the cornfields grew and ripened

Near the shadows of the forest.

III

Where, oh where now is the watchman?

Where the sentin’l on his marches;

Of his brother’s blood the keeper?

See him dozing by the corn-land

See him lying in the pasture?

Who, oh who with gentle prodding

Thus will venture to awake him?

Not the cries of all the mighty

From his slumber now will move him

Till the sound of golden trumpet

Comes upon him at the judgment.

There he lies with limbs akimbo

And his brains upon the verdure

Where the heathen ax hath dashed them

Like the blood of righteous Abel.

Raise the cry, oh men of Hadley

For King Philip is upon you

Come to slaughter all your children

Burn your village and its houses.

“Bring me fire,” cries the sachem.

And with vault of forest panther

Lights upon a sloping rooftop

Of a humble habitation

First that ever white-man built there

First to feel king Philip’s anger.

Now the town of Hadley blazes,

Now the people know their danger:

Grab the muskets, grab the water

All rush to the town’s defenses.

So the preacher in the chapel

Gathers to him all the children.

“Pray, oh pray now little children,

That the Lord above may hear thee,

Turn aside his awful anger

At the sins and fornications

Of His people who forgot him

’Midst the splendor of His bounty.

For perhaps He will relent Him

And for us raise up a Champion

Even in this dreadful hour

Bring the rescuer to Hadley.

So they pray now in a circle

With the women round about them

While outside the fire rages

And the men lie dead and bleeding.

IV

See them now across the river;

There they march, the men of Hartford,

With the gleam upon their iron

Shining like the stars at evening

‘Gainst the darkness of their raiment.

So they march in ordered silence

And the captains and the sergeants

Issue forth their clear commandments

With the sureness of Archangels

On the battlements of heaven.

“Who can tell us,” calls the captain,

“Whither now the town of Hadley?”

“Look no further,” cries the Chaplain

With his finger raised to eastward,

“Yonder burning is its landmark.

Haste, oh haste we now to help them

‘Fore the slaughter is accomplished.”

“Haste, oh haste” –a salutation

With the sound of distant thunder

Echoes back the preacher’s urgings

Down the valley of the river

And the men all stand in wonder

At its strange reverberations.

“Hear this voice, oh men of Hartford?”

Calleth out their brave commander.

“Throw from off yourselves this stupor.

Gird your loins and let us hasten,

‘Tis a sign from Lord Jehovah,

Let us not be slow to answer.”

V

Now the men of Hartford hasten

From their place across the river

While the town of Hadley burneth

‘Midst the slaughter and the pillage

Of her frantic sons and daughters.

Hear the banging on the church door

Of the tomahawks and hatchets.

“Get behind me,” cries the preacher

To his flock of ewes and lambkins.

Throws himself against the barrier

With his own weight blocks the portal.

Even now the heathen axes

With their dull reverberations

Strike and splinter all the timbers--

Throw them down: the preacher stumbles.

To the ground the natives dash him

Raise the tomahawk and hatchet

See, oh see the natives stand there,

Like a painting or a statue

’Midst the incense and the tapers

In the chapels of the papists

All of gold and ivory blazoned

So they stand now in their wonder

For behold the murky figure

Of an agéd apparition

Stands between them and the pastor

Dressed in weeds of antique sable

With his saber drawn before him.

All their eyes are now upon him,

Eyes of Christian and of heathen.

“Stand ye back, by God Almighty,

Who shall dare to touch His servant

Set upon the Lord’s anointed,

By this hand, myself will slay him.”

For one moment do they waver,

In their heathen hearts take measure:

Living man or apparition

Is this one who stands before them?

Then as one they turn to fleeing,

With the stranger striding after

And his voice the voice of thunder

Raging over many waters:

“Come to me oh men of Hadley,

Reck ye not of Sachem Philip,

He who took the head from Charles

Will not flinch from native chieftain.

In the scales of great Jehovah

Lies the balance of the battle.

Forward now at this new Marston;

See another tyrant toppled.”

At his voice the men make rally

As the Levites did with Moses

When he called them to the slaughter

’Round the gold abomination

fashioned by the hands of Aaron.

So they set upon the natives

on the sachems of King Philip.

In the front ranks fights the stranger

Where no weapon seems to harm him.

Blow of hatchet and of bullet

Are to him as straws and pebbles

In the hands of village children.

Still the natives’ strength is greater,

And the men of Hadley slacken,

As the numbers weigh against them

And the tide of battle turneth.

“Fight ye still, oh men of Hadley.

Fight ye still, your God will aid you.”

Cries the stranger midst the tumult.

“Hearken to him,” cries the pastor,

“For he seems the Lord’s own angel,

Sent to stride the fields of battle

In the hour of God’s judgment.”

One more push with all their straining

Make they now against the heathen

When from out the forest timbers

Come with cry the men of Hartford,

With their banner borne before them:

“He who transplants yet sustaineth,”

’Neath the grapevines reads the motto.

At the sight, the natives panic,

At the sight all courage leaves them,

Sends them back across the river

All in flight and with much slaughter.

And the word in Narragansett

From the few who lived to speak it

Told how Hadley was protected

By a grey and awesome spirit

With a voice that spoke the thunder

And a sword that flashed as lightning.

VI

Who can name for us that hero,

Tell for us his habitation?

When the townsfolk all came looking

Nothing sure could they discover.

And the year moved in its courses

And the strength of Philip wanéd

Till at last his people faltered

And the sachem found his ending

In the marshes of Rhode Island.

Then the tale was told in Boston

To the magistrates’ amazement,

How a hero came to Hadley

In the moment of her crisis.

And the Men of Boston wondered

At their curious deliv’rance.

But a lowly servant swore him

Till the day of his departing   

That his own eye saw the smile

On the lips of Increase Mather.