LITERATURE AND LIFE IN THE HOMELAND
_“One flag, one land, one heart, one hand,_
_One Nation evermore!”_
—Oliver Wendell Holmes.
[Illustration: Copyright by M. G. Abbey (from a Copley Print, copyright
by Curtis & Cameron, Boston)
PENN’S TREATY WITH THE INDIANS]
LITERATURE AND LIFE IN THE HOMELAND
INTRODUCTION
It is a hard thing to picture to ourselves our Homeland. Is America just
a lot of cities and towns and farms, or a collection of so many thousands
of square miles of prairies and mountains, the sort of thing one would
see from an airplane if one could get up high enough and had good enough
eyes? Or is it a collection of states with queer boundary lines that look
plainer on a map than they do when we cross them in the train? There are
people who try to find America in some motto or symbol. One of our great
cities has for its motto the words “I will,” and the people who live in
that city like to think that the enterprise by which they build great
industries and give work to great numbers of people is the expression of
their Americanism. And some people see in the Statue of Liberty in the
New York harbor, a statue holding aloft a blazing torch to give light to
all people, the symbol that best expresses the spirit of America.
Both the motto and the statue help us to see our country as something
more than a part of a book called “Geography” or “History.” Both of them
express what America had always been to its citizens and what it became
to the world in 1917. We did not desire to enter the war, but when it
became necessary to do so no true American hesitated. There were great
difficulties: an army to raise and equip and train so that it could meet
an army that had been preparing for forty years to fight the world; an
army to be transported over three thousand miles of water, a terrific
task even in normal times, but made a hundred-fold harder because of the
monsters that lurked under the sea waiting a chance to send a transport
to the bottom. And once across, there were docks and railroads to be
built and a great industrial organization to be set going. But the will
of America was triumphant and the job was done. And the statue, like the
“I will,” is a symbol of the spirit in America that has helped the spirit
of liberty throughout the world, so that we now know the day is coming
when all peoples, everywhere, shall be free. We can make a beginning,
therefore, in our effort to form a picture of what America means, by
thinking of this Statue of Liberty and of these words of high purpose, “I
will.”
But we must fill in the picture. No statue will do, for it, after all,
is lifeless. No motto will do, for it is only a phrase, an inscription.
A photograph on which you have written a date or the record of a happy
meeting with your friend, is very interesting indeed, and helps you to
call to mind your friend. But in reality the photograph merely suggests
to you your friend and your happy times together. Your friend has many
moods, now sad, now gay. Your friend looks different at different times.
The history of your friendship has many events in it, and all these
go together, a thousand details, to make up your own idea “this is my
friend.” So it is with America. History and legend, the knowledge of past
events, must acquaint us with our country as with our friend. Infinite
variety of mood she has, now stern and grave like her mountains, now
placid like her vast expanse of prairie or her waving fields of grain;
now laughing like the waters in the sunlight, or beautiful in anger
as mighty storms sweep hill and plain. And infinite, again, are her
activities—great factories and mills, lofty office buildings filled with
workers, trains speeding like mighty shuttles through vast distances,
farms filled with growing food for a world. All these you must bring into
your picture, and more, for infinite, also, are the ideals and hopes that
go to make up this many-sided personality that we name Our Country.
The selections that follow will help you to make this picture that is
to be more to us than a statue or a photograph. Some of them are little
views, snapshots of our nation’s childhood. Others are pictures of
various moods or appearances of the later America. Some show the spirit
of laughter in America; others give some of the songs of America; and at
the end are a few pictures of America at work. All will help, but they
are only an imperfect and brief introduction to a subject that is going
to interest you all through your life: What is America to me, and what
can I do to make her happy?
EARLY AMERICA
[Illustration]
THE CHARACTER OF COLUMBUS
ARCHBISHOP CORRIGAN
To us it is given to behold in its full splendor what Columbus, like
another Moses on the borders of the Land of Promise, could only discern
in dim and distant outlines. And, therefore, with Italy, the land of his
birth; with Spain, the land of his adoption; with the other nations of
the globe who are debtors to his daring, we gladly swell the universal
chorus in his honor of praise and of thanksgiving.
In 1792 the ocean separated us by a journey of seventy days from Europe;
our self-government was looked upon as a problem still to be solved;
at home, facilities of travel and of intercommunication were yet to be
provided. More than this, the unworthy innuendoes, the base as well as
baseless charges that sought to tarnish the fair fame of Columbus, had
not been removed by patient historical research and critical acumen.
Fortunately, these clouds that gathered around the exploits of the great
discoverer have been almost entirely dispelled, thanks especially to the
initiative of a son of our Empire State, the immortal Washington Irving.
I beg to present Columbus as a man of science and a man of faith.
As a scientist, considering the time in which he lived, he eminently
deserves our respect. Both in theory and in practice he was one of the
best geographers and cosmographers of the age. According to reliable
historians, before he set out to discover new seas, he had navigated
the whole extent of those already known. Moreover, he had studied so
many authors and to such advantage that Alexander von Humboldt affirmed:
“When we consider his life we must feel astonishment at the extent of his
literary acquaintance.”
Columbus took nothing for granted. While he bowed reverently to
the teachings of his faith, he brushed away as cobwebs certain
interpretations of Scripture more fanciful than real, and calmly
maintained that the Word of God cannot be in conflict with scientific
truth. The project of bearing Christ over the waters sank deeply into
his heart. Time and again he alludes to it as the main object of his
researches and the aim of his labors. Other motives of action undoubtedly
he had, but they were a means to an end.
Moreover, may we not reasonably assume that the great navigator, after
all, was a willing instrument in the hands of God? The old order
was changing. Three great inventions, already beginning to exert a
most potent influence, were destined to revolutionize the world—the
printing-press, which led to the revival of learning; the use of
gun-powder, which changed the methods of warfare; the mariner’s compass,
which permitted the sailor to tempt boldly even unknown seas.
These three great factors of civilization, each in its own way, so
stimulated human thought that the discovery of America was plainly in the
designs of that Providence which “reacheth from end to end mightily and
ordereth all things sweetly.”
NOTES AND QUESTIONS
=Biography.= Michael Augustine Corrigan (1839-1902) was born in
Newark, New Jersey. He became Archbishop of New York and was a
distinguished Prelate. This selection is taken from a Columbus Day
address he gave in Chicago in 1892.
=Discussion.= 1. Explain the comparison found in the second line. 2.
What claims does the author make for Columbus as a scientific man?
3. What great inventions occurred previous to Columbus’s voyage that
affected his discovery of America? 4. Do you think the spirit of
adventure had something to do with Columbus’s discovery? Pronounce
the following: government; acumen; exploits; geographers; alludes.
=Phrases=
unworthy innuendoes, 405, 11
critical acumen, 405, 14
potent influence, 406, 22
factors of civilization, 406, 27
THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS
FELICIA HEMANS
The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed;
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o’er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame;
Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear;
They shook the depths of the desert gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.
Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free!
The ocean eagle soared
From his nest by the white wave’s foam;
And the rocking pines of the forest roared—
This was their welcome home!
There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band;
Why had _they_ come to wither there,
Away from their childhood’s land?
There was woman’s fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love’s truth;
There was manhood’s brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.
What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?
They sought a faith’s pure shrine!
Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod.
They have left unstained what there they found—
Freedom to worship God.
NOTES AND QUESTIONS
=Biography.= Felicia Hemans (1793-1835), an English poet, was born
in Liverpool. She began to write poetry when young, and in 1819 won
a prize of £50 offered for the best poem on “The Meeting of Wallace
and Bruce on the Banks of the Carron.” She is best known by her short
poems, some of which have become standard English lyrics, such as
“The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers,” “Treasures of the Deep,” and
“Casabianca.”
=Discussion.= 1. What picture do the first two stanzas give you? 2.
Compare the coming of a conqueror with the coming of these early
settlers. 3. What different kinds of persons composed the “pilgrim
band”? 4. Why did they come to this new country? 5. Why does the poet
say “holy ground”? 6. What legacy have the Pilgrims left us?
=Phrases=
hung dark, 407, 5
stirring drums, 407, 11
hoary hair, 408, 1
pilgrim band, 408, 2
spoils of war, 408, 11
faith’s pure shrine, 408, 12
PHILIP OF POKANOKET
AN INDIAN MEMOIR
WASHINGTON IRVING
As monumental bronze unchanged his look;
A soul that pity touch’d but never shook;
Train’d from his tree-rock’d cradle to his bier,
The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook
Impassive—fearing but the shame of fear—
A stoic of the woods—a man without a tear.
CAMPBELL.
It is to be regretted that those early writers, who treated of the
discovery and settlement of America, have not given us more particular
and candid accounts of the remarkable characters that flourished in
savage life. The scanty anecdotes which have reached us are full of
peculiarity and interest; they furnish us with nearer glimpses of
human nature, and show what man is in a comparatively primitive state,
and what he owes to civilization. There is something of the charm of
discovery in lighting upon these wild and unexplored tracts of human
nature; in witnessing, as it were, the native growth of moral sentiment,
and perceiving those generous and romantic qualities which have been
artificially cultivated by society, vegetating in spontaneous hardihood
and rude magnificence.
In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence,
of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow-men, he is
constantly acting a studied part. The bold and peculiar traits of native
character are refined away, or softened down by the leveling influence of
what is termed good-breeding; and he practices so many petty deceptions,
and affects so many generous sentiments, for the purposes of popularity,
that it is difficult to distinguish his real from his artificial
character. The Indian, on the contrary, free from the restraints and
refinements of polished life, and, in a great degree, a solitary and
independent being, obeys the impulses of his inclination or the dictates
of his judgment; and thus the attributes of his nature, being freely
indulged, grow singly great and striking. Society is like a lawn, where
every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye
is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface; he, however,
who would study nature in its wildness and variety, must plunge into
the forest, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the
precipice.
These reflections arose on casually looking through a volume of early
colonial history, wherein are recorded, with great bitterness, the
outrages of the Indians, and their wars with the settlers of New England.
It is painful to perceive even from these partial narratives, how the
footsteps of civilization may be traced in the blood of the aborigines;
how easily the colonists were moved to hostility by the lust of conquest;
how merciless and exterminating was their warfare. The imagination
shrinks at the idea, how many intellectual beings were hunted from the
earth, how many brave and noble hearts, of nature’s sterling coinage,
were broken down and trampled in the dust!
Such was the fate of Philip of Pokanoket, an Indian warrior, whose name
was once a terror throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut. He was the
most distinguished of a number of contemporary Sachems who reigned over
the Pequods, the Narragansets, the Wampanoags, and the other eastern
tribes, at the time of the first settlement of New England; a band of
native untaught heroes, who made the most generous struggle of which
human nature is capable; fighting to the last gasp in the cause of their
country, without a hope of victory or a thought of renown. Worthy of an
age of poetry, and fit subjects for local story and romantic fiction,
they have left scarcely any authentic traces on the page of history, but
stalk, like gigantic shadows, in the dim twilight of tradition.
When the pilgrims, as the Plymouth settlers are called by their
descendants, first took refuge on the shores of the New World, from
the religious persecutions of the Old, their situation was to the
last degree gloomy and disheartening. Few in number, and that number
rapidly perishing away through sickness and hardships; surrounded by a
howling wilderness and savage tribes; exposed to the rigors of an almost
arctic winter, and the vicissitudes of an ever-shifting climate; their
minds were filled with doleful forebodings, and nothing preserved them
from sinking into despondency but the strong excitement of religious
enthusiasm. In this forlorn situation they were visited by Massasoit,
chief Sagamore of the Wampanoags, a powerful chief, who reigned over a
great extent of country. Instead of taking advantage of the scanty number
of the strangers, and expelling them from his territories, into which
they had intruded, he seemed at once to conceive for them a generous
friendship, and extended toward them the rites of primitive hospitality.
He came early in the spring to their settlement of New Plymouth, attended
by a mere handful of followers, entered into a solemn league of peace
and amity; sold them a portion of the soil, and promised to secure for
them the good-will of his savage allies. Whatever may be said of Indian
perfidy, it is certain that the integrity and good faith of Massasoit
have never been impeached. He continued a firm and magnanimous friend
of the white men; suffering them to extend their possessions, and to
strengthen themselves in the land; and betraying no jealousy of their
increasing power and prosperity. Shortly before his death he came once
more to New Plymouth, with his son Alexander, for the purpose of renewing
the covenant of peace, and of securing it to his posterity.
At this conference he endeavored to protect the religion of his
forefathers from the encroaching zeal of the missionaries; and stipulated
that no further attempt should be made to draw off his people from their
ancient faith; but, finding the English obstinately opposed to any such
condition, he mildly relinquished the demand. Almost the last act of
his life was to bring his two sons, Alexander and Philip (as they had
been named by the English), to the residence of a principal settler,
recommending mutual kindness and confidence; and entreating that the same
love and amity which had existed between the white men and himself might
be continued afterwards with his children. The good old Sachem died in
peace, and was happily gathered to his fathers before sorrow came upon
his tribe; his children remained behind to experience the ingratitude of
white men.
His eldest son, Alexander, succeeded him. He was of a quick and impetuous
temper, and proudly tenacious of his hereditary rights and dignity. The
intrusive policy and dictatorial conduct of the strangers excited his
indignation; and he beheld with uneasiness their exterminating wars with
the neighboring tribes. He was doomed soon to incur their hostility,
being accused of plotting with the Narragansets to rise against the
English and drive them from the land. It is impossible to say whether
this accusation was warranted by facts or was grounded on mere suspicion.
It is evident, however, by the violent and overbearing measures of the
settlers, that they had by this time begun to feel conscious of the rapid
increase of their power, and to grow harsh and inconsiderate in their
treatment of the natives. They despatched an armed force to seize upon
Alexander, and to bring him before their courts. He was traced to his
woodland haunts, and surprised at a hunting house, where he was reposing
with a band of his followers, unarmed, after the toils of the chase.
The suddenness of his arrest, and the outrage offered to his sovereign
dignity, so preyed upon the irascible feelings of this proud savage, as
to throw him into a raging fever. He was permitted to return home, on
condition of sending his son as a pledge for his reappearance; but the
blow he had received was fatal, and before he had reached his home he
fell a victim to the agonies of a wounded spirit.
The successor of Alexander was Metacomet, or King Philip, as he was
called by the settlers, on account of his lofty spirit and ambitious
temper. These, together with his well-known energy and enterprise, had
rendered him an object of great jealousy and apprehension, and he was
accused of having always cherished a secret and implacable hostility
toward the whites. Such may very probably, and very naturally, have
been the case. He considered them as originally but mere intruders into
the country, who had presumed upon indulgence, and were extending an
influence baneful to savage life. He saw the whole race of his countrymen
melting before them from the face of the earth; their territories
slipping from their hands, and their tribes becoming feeble, scattered,
and dependent. It may be said that the soil was originally purchased by
the settlers; but who does not know the nature of Indian purchases, in
the early periods of colonization? The Europeans always made thrifty
bargains through their superior adroitness in traffic; and they gained
vast accessions of territory by easily provoked hostilities. An
uncultivated savage is never a nice inquirer into the refinements of
law, by which an injury may be gradually and legally inflicted. Leading
facts are all by which he judges; and it was enough for Philip to know
that before the intrusion of the Europeans his countrymen were lords of
the soil, and that now they were becoming vagabonds in the land of their
fathers.
But whatever may have been his feelings of general hostility, and his
particular indignation at the treatment of his brother, he suppressed
them for the present, renewed the contract with the settlers, and
resided peaceably for many years at Pokanoket, or, as it was called by
the English, Mount Hope, the ancient seat of dominion of his tribe.
Suspicions, however, which were at first but vague and indefinite,
began to acquire form and substance; and he was at length charged with
attempting to instigate the various Eastern tribes to rise at once, and,
by a simultaneous effort, to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. It
is difficult at this distant period to assign the proper credit due to
these early accusations against the Indians. There was a proneness to
suspicion, and an aptness to acts of violence, on the part of the whites,
that gave weight and importance to every idle tale. Informers abounded
where talebearing met with countenance and reward; and the sword was
readily unsheathed when its success was certain, and it carved out empire.
The only positive evidence on record against Philip is the accusation of
one Sausaman, a renegado Indian, whose natural cunning had been quickened
by a partial education which he had received among the settlers. He
changed his faith and his allegiance two or three times, with a facility
that evinced the looseness of his principles. He had acted for some time
as Philip’s confidential secretary and counselor and had enjoyed his
bounty and protection. Finding, however, that the clouds of adversity
were gathering round his patron, he abandoned his service and went over
to the whites; and, in order to gain their favor, charged his former
benefactor with plotting against their safety. A rigorous investigation
took place. Philip and several of his subjects submitted to be examined,
but nothing was proved against them. The settlers, however, had now gone
too far to retract; they had previously determined that Philip was a
dangerous neighbor; they had publicly evinced their distrust; and had
done enough to insure his hostility; according, therefore, to the usual
mode of reasoning in these cases, his destruction had become necessary
to their security. Sausaman, the treacherous informer, was shortly
afterwards found dead in a pond, having fallen a victim to the vengeance
of his tribe. Three Indians, one of whom was a friend and counselor of
Philip, were apprehended and tried, and, on the testimony of one very
questionable witness, were condemned and executed as murderers.
This treatment of his subjects, and ignominious punishment of his friend,
outraged the pride and exasperated the passions of Philip. The bolt which
had fallen thus at his very feet awakened him to the gathering storm, and
he determined to trust himself no longer in the power of the white men.
The fate of his insulted and broken-hearted brother still rankled in his
mind and he had a further warning in the tragical story of Miantonimo, a
great Sachem of the Narragansets, who, after manfully facing his accusers
before a tribunal of the colonists, exculpating himself from a charge
of conspiracy, and receiving assurances of amity, had been perfidiously
despatched at their instigation. Philip, therefore, gathered his fighting
men about him; persuaded all strangers that he could, to join his cause;
sent the women and children to the Narragansets for safety; and, wherever
he appeared, was continually surrounded by armed warriors.
When the two parties were thus in a state of distrust and irritation,
the least spark was sufficient to set them in a flame. The Indians,
having weapons in their hands, grew mischievous, and committed various
petty depredations. In one of their maraudings a warrior was fired on
and killed by a settler. This was the signal for open hostilities; the
Indians pressed to revenge the death of their comrade, and the alarm of
war resounded through the Plymouth colony.
In the early chronicles of these dark and melancholy times we meet
with many indications of the diseased state of the public mind. The
gloom of religious abstraction, and the wildness of their situation,
among trackless forests and savage tribes, had disposed the colonists
to superstitious fancies, and had filled their imaginations with the
frightful chimeras of witchcraft and spectrology. They were much given
also to a belief in omens. The troubles with Philip and his Indians were
preceded, we are told, by a variety of those awful warnings which forerun
great and public calamities. The perfect form of an Indian bow appeared
in the air at New Plymouth, which was looked upon by the inhabitants as
a “prodigious apparition,” At Hadley, Northampton, and other towns in
their neighborhood, “was heard the report of a great piece of ordnance,
with a shaking of the earth and a considerable echo.” Others were alarmed
on a still, sunshiny morning, by the discharge of guns and muskets;
bullets seemed to whistle past them, and the noise of drums resounded in
the air, seeming to pass away to the westward; others fancied that they
heard the galloping of horses over their heads; and certain monstrous
births, which took place about the time, filled the superstitious in
some towns with doleful forebodings. Many of these portentous sights and
sounds may be ascribed to natural phenomena: to the northern lights which
occur vividly in those latitudes; the meteors which explode in the air;
the casual rushing of a blast through the top branches of the forest;
the crash of fallen trees or disrupted rocks; and to those other uncouth
sounds and echoes which will sometimes strike the ear so strangely amidst
the profound stillness of woodland solitudes. These may have startled
some melancholy imaginations, may have been exaggerated by the love of
the marvelous, and listened to with that avidity with which we devour
whatever is fearful and mysterious. The universal currency of these
superstitious fancies, and the grave record made of them by one of the
learned men of the day, are strongly characteristic of the times.
The nature of the contest that ensued was such as too often distinguishes
the warfare between civilized men and savages. On the part of the
whites it was conducted with superior skill and success; but with a
wastefulness of the blood, and a disregard of the natural rights of their
antagonists; on the part of the Indians it was waged with the desperation
of men fearless of death, and who had nothing to expect from peace, but
humiliation, dependence, and decay.
The events of the war are transmitted to us by a worthy clergyman of the
time, who dwells with horror and indignation on every hostile act of the
Indians, however justifiable, whilst he mentions with applause the most
sanguinary atrocities of the whites. Philip is reviled as a murderer and
a traitor, without considering that he was a true born prince, gallantly
fighting at the head of his subjects to avenge the wrongs of his family,
to retrieve the tottering power of his line, and to deliver his native
land from the oppression of usurping strangers.
The project of a wide and simultaneous revolt, if such had really been
formed, was worthy of a capacious mind, and, had it not been prematurely
discovered, might have been overwhelming in its consequences. The war
that actually broke out was but a war of detail, a mere succession of
casual exploits and unconnected enterprises. Still it sets forth the
military genius and daring prowess of Philip; and wherever, in the
prejudiced and passionate narrations that have been given of it, we
can arrive at simple facts, we find him displaying a vigorous mind, a
fertility of expedients, a contempt of suffering and hardship, and an
unconquerable resolution, that command our sympathy and applause.
Driven from his paternal domains at Mount Hope, he threw himself into the
depths of those vast and trackless forests that skirted the settlements,
and were almost impervious to anything but a wild beast or an Indian.
Here he gathered together his forces, like the storm accumulating
its stores of mischief in the bosom of the thunder cloud, and would
suddenly emerge at a time and place least expected, carrying havoc and
dismay into the villages. There were now and then indications of these
impending ravages, that filled the minds of the colonists with awe and
apprehension. The report of a distant gun would perhaps be heard from
the solitary woodlands, where there was known to be no white man; the
cattle which had been wandering in the woods would sometimes return home
wounded; or an Indian or two would be seen lurking about the skirts of
the forests, and suddenly disappearing; as the lightning will sometimes
be seen playing silently about the edge of the cloud that is brewing up
the tempest.
Though sometimes pursued and even surrounded by the settlers, yet Philip
as often escaped almost miraculously from their toils, and, plunging into
the wilderness, would be lost to all search or inquiry, until he again
emerged at some far distant quarter, laying the country desolate. Among
his strongholds were the great swamps or morasses, which extend in some
parts of New England; composed of loose bogs of deep black mud; perplexed
with thickets, brambles, rank weeds, the shattered and moldering trunks
of fallen trees, overshadowed by lugubrious hemlocks. The uncertain
footing and the tangled mazes of these shaggy wilds rendered them
almost impracticable to the white man, though the Indian could thread
their labyrinths with the agility of a deer. Into one of these, the
great swamp of Pocasset Neck, was Philip once driven with a band of his
followers. The English did not dare to pursue him, fearing to venture
into these dark and frightful recesses, where they might perish in fens
and miry pits, or be shot down by lurking foes. They therefore invested
the entrance to the Neck, and began to build a fort, with the thought
of starving out the foe; but Philip and his warriors wafted themselves
on a raft over an arm of the sea, in the dead of the night, leaving the
women and children behind; and escaped away to the westward, kindling the
flames of war among the tribes of Massachusetts and the Nipmuck country,
and threatening the colony of Connecticut.
In this way Philip became a theme of universal apprehension. The mystery
in which he was enveloped exaggerated his real terrors. He was an evil
that walked in darkness; whose coming none could foresee, and against
which none knew when to be on the alert. The whole country abounded
with rumors and alarms. Philip seemed almost possessed of ubiquity; for,
in whatever part of the widely-extended frontier an irruption from the
forest took place, Philip was said to be its leader. Many superstitious
notions also were circulated concerning him. He was said to deal in
necromancy, and to be attended by an old Indian witch or prophetess, whom
he consulted, and who assisted him by her charms and incantations. This
indeed was frequently the case with Indian chiefs; either through their
own credulity, or to act upon that of their followers; and the influence
of the prophet and the dreamer over Indian superstition has been fully
evidenced in recent instances of savage warfare.
At the time that Philip effected his escape from Pocasset, his fortunes
were in a desperate condition. His forces had been thinned by repeated
fights, and he had lost almost the whole of his resources. In this time
of adversity he found a faithful friend in Canonchet, chief Sachem of
all the Narragansets. He was the son and heir of Miantonimo, the great
Sachem, who, as already mentioned, after an honorable acquittal of the
charge of conspiracy, had been privately put to death at the perfidious
instigations of the settlers. “He was the heir,” says the old chronicler,
“of all his father’s pride and insolence, as well as of his malice toward
the English”;—he certainly was the heir of his insults and injuries, and
the legitimate avenger of his murder. Though he had forborne to take an
active part in this hopeless war, yet he received Philip and his broken
forces with open arms; and gave them the most generous countenance and
support. This at once drew upon him the hostility of the English; and
it was determined to strike a signal blow that should involve both the
Sachems in one common ruin. A great force was, therefore, gathered
together from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, and was sent into
the Narraganset country in the depth of winter, when the swamps, being
frozen and leafless, could be traversed with comparative facility, and
would no longer afford dark and impenetrable fastnesses to the Indians.
Apprehensive of attack, Canonchet had conveyed the greater part of his
stores, together with the old, the infirm, the women and children of
his tribe, to a strong fortress; where he and Philip had likewise drawn
up the flower of their forces. This fortress, deemed by the Indians
impregnable, was situated upon a rising mound or kind of island, of five
or six acres, in the midst of a swamp; it was constructed with a degree
of judgment and skill vastly superior to what is usually displayed in
Indian fortification, and indicative of the martial genius of these two
chieftains.
Guided by a renegado Indian, the English penetrated, through December
snows, to this stronghold, and came upon the garrison by surprise. The
fight was fierce and tumultuous. The assailants were repulsed in their
first attack, and several of their bravest officers were shot down in the
act of storming the fortress sword in hand. The assault was renewed with
greater success. A lodgment was effected. The Indians were driven from
one post to another. They disputed their ground inch by inch, fighting
with the fury of despair. Most of their veterans were cut to pieces; and
after a long and bloody battle, Philip and Canonchet, with a handful
of surviving warriors, retreated from the fort, and took refuge in the
thickets of the surrounding forest.
The victors set fire to the wigwams and the fort; the whole was soon in
a blaze; many of the old men, the women, and the children perished in
the flames. This last outrage overcame even the stoicism of the savage.
The neighboring woods resounded with the yells of rage and despair,
uttered by the fugitive warriors, as they beheld the destruction of their
dwellings, and heard the agonizing cries of their wives and offspring.
“The burning of the wigwams,” says a contemporary writer, “the shrieks
and cries of the women and children, and the yelling of the warriors,
exhibited a most horrible and affecting scene, so that it greatly moved
some of the soldiers.” The same writer cautiously adds, “They were in
_much doubt_ then, and afterwards seriously inquired, whether burning
their enemies alive could be consistent with humanity, and the benevolent
principles of the Gospel.”
The fate of the brave and generous Canonchet is worthy of particular
mention: the last scene of his life is one of the noblest instances on
record of Indian magnanimity.
Broken down in his power and resources by this signal defeat, yet
faithful to his ally, and to the hapless cause which he had espoused,
he rejected all overtures of peace, offered on condition of betraying
Philip and his followers, and declared that “he would fight it out to
the last man, rather than become a servant to the English.” His home
being destroyed, his country harassed and laid waste by the incursions
of the conquerors, he was obliged to wander away to the banks of the
Connecticut; where he formed a rallying point to the whole body of
western Indians, and laid waste several of the English settlements.
Early in the spring he departed on a hazardous expedition, with only
thirty chosen men, to penetrate to Seaconck, in the vicinity of Mount
Hope, and to procure seed corn to plant for the sustenance of his troops.
This little band of adventurers had passed safely through the Pequod
country, and were in the center of the Narraganset, resting at some
wigwams near Pawtucket River, when an alarm was given of an approaching
enemy. Having but seven men by him at the time, Canonchet dispatched two
of them to the top of a neighboring hill, to bring intelligence of the
foe.
Panic-struck by the appearance of a troop of English and Indians rapidly
advancing, they fled in breathless terror past their chieftain, without
stopping to inform him of the danger. Canonchet sent another scout,
who did the same. He then sent two more, one of whom, hurrying back in
confusion and affright, told him that the whole British army was at hand.
Canonchet saw there was no choice but immediate flight. He attempted to
escape round the hill, but was perceived and hotly pursued by the hostile
Indians and a few of the fleetest of the English. Finding the swiftest
pursuer close upon his heels, he threw off, first his blanket, then his
silver-laced coat and belt of peag, by which his enemies knew him to be
Canonchet, and redoubled the eagerness of pursuit.
At length, in dashing through the river, his foot slipped upon a stone,
and he fell so deep as to wet his gun. This accident so struck him with
despair, that, as he afterwards confessed, “his heart and his bowels
turned within him, and he became like a rotten stick, void of strength.”
To such a degree was he unnerved that, being seized by a Pequod Indian
within a short distance of the river, he made no resistance, though a man
of great vigor of body and boldness of heart. But on being made prisoner
the whole pride of his spirit arose within him; and from that moment
we find, in the anecdotes given by his enemies, nothing but repeated
flashes of elevated and prince-like heroism. Being questioned by one
of the English who first came up with him, and who had not attained
his twenty-second year, the proud-hearted warrior, looking with lofty
contempt upon his youthful countenance, replied, “You are a child—you
cannot understand matters of war—let your brother or your chief come—him
will I answer.”
Though repeated offers were made to him of his life, on condition of
submitting with his nation to the English, yet he rejected them with
disdain, and refused to send any proposals of the kind to the great body
of his subjects; saying that he knew none of them would comply. Being
reproached with his breach of faith toward the whites, his boast that he
would not deliver up a Wampanoag nor the paring of a Wampanoag’s nail,
and his threat that he would burn the English alive in their houses, he
disdained to justify himself, haughtily answering that others were as
forward for the war as himself, and he desired to hear no more thereof.
So noble and unshaken a spirit, so true a fidelity to his cause and his
friend, might have touched the feelings of the generous and the brave;
but Canonchet was an Indian, a being toward whom war had no courtesy,
humanity no law, religion no compassion—he was condemned to die. The last
words of him that are recorded are worthy the greatness of his soul. When
sentence of death was passed upon him, he observed that he liked it well,
for he should die before his heart was soft, or he had spoken any thing
unworthy of himself. His enemies gave him the death of a soldier, for he
was shot at Stoningham, by three young Sachems of his own rank.
The defeat at the Narraganset fortress, and the death of Canonchet,
were fatal blows to the fortunes of King Philip. He made an ineffectual
attempt to raise a head of war, by stirring up the Mohawks to take
arms; but though possessed of the native talents of a statesman, his
arts were counteracted by the superior arts of his enlightened enemies,
and the terror of their warlike skill began to subdue the resolution
of the neighboring tribes. The unfortunate chieftain saw himself daily
stripped of power, and his ranks rapidly thinning around him. Some were
suborned by the whites; others fell victims to hunger and fatigue,
and to the frequent attacks by which they were harassed. His stores
were all captured; his chosen friends were swept away from before his
eyes; his uncle was shot down by his side; his sister was carried into
captivity; and in one of his narrow escapes he was compelled to leave
his beloved wife and only son to the mercy of the enemy. “His ruin,”
says the historian, “being thus gradually carried on, his misery was not
prevented, but augmented thereby; being himself made acquainted with the
sense and experimental feeling of the captivity of his children, loss of
friends, slaughter of his subjects, bereavement of all family relations,
and being stripped of all outward comforts, before his own life should be
taken away.”
To fill up the measure of his misfortunes, his own followers began to
plot against his life, that by sacrificing him they might purchase
dishonorable safety. Through treachery a number of his faithful
adherents, the subjects of Wetamoe, an Indian princess of Pocasset, a
near kinswoman and confederate of Philip, were betrayed into the hands of
the enemy. Wetamoe was among them at the time, and attempted to make her
escape by crossing a neighboring river; either exhausted by swimming, or
starved by cold and hunger, she was found dead and naked near the water
side.
However Philip had borne up against the complicated miseries and
misfortunes that surrounded him, the treachery of his followers seemed to
wring his heart and reduce him to despondency. It is said that “he never
rejoiced afterwards, nor had success in any of his designs.” The spring
of hope was broken—the ardor of enterprise was extinguished—he looked
around, and all was danger and darkness; there was no eye to pity, nor
any arm that could bring deliverance. With a scanty band of followers,
who still remained true to his desperate fortunes, the unhappy Philip
wandered back to the vicinity of Mount Hope, the ancient dwelling of his
fathers. Here he lurked about, like a specter, among the scenes of former
power and prosperity, now bereft of home, of family, and friend. There
needs no better picture of his destitute and piteous situation than that
furnished by the homely pen of the chronicler, who is unwarily enlisting
the feelings of the reader in favor of the hapless warrior whom he
reviles. “Philip,” he says, “like a savage wild beast, having been hunted
by the English forces through the woods, above a hundred miles backward
and forward, at last was driven to his own den upon Mount Hope, where he
retired, with a few of his best friends, into a swamp, which proved but
a prison to keep him fast till the messengers of death came by divine
permission to execute vengeance upon him.”
Even in this last refuge of desperation and despair, a sullen grandeur
gathers round his memory. We picture him to ourselves seated among his
careworn followers, brooding in silence over his blasted fortunes,
and acquiring a savage sublimity from the wildness and dreariness of
his lurking-place. Defeated, but not dismayed—crushed to the earth,
but not humiliated—he seemed to grow more haughty beneath disaster,
and to experience a fierce satisfaction in draining the last dregs of
bitterness. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great
minds rise above it. The very idea of submission awakened the fury of
Philip, and he smote to death one of his followers, who proposed an
expedient of peace. The brother of the victim made his escape, and in
revenge betrayed the retreat of his chieftain. A body of white men
and Indians were immediately dispatched to the swamp where Philip lay
crouched, glaring with fury and despair. Before he was aware of their
approach, they had begun to surround him. In a little while he saw five
of his trustiest followers laid dead at his feet; all resistance was
vain; he rushed forth from his covert, and made a headlong attempt to
escape, but was shot through the heart by a renegado Indian of his own
nation.
Such is the scanty story of the brave but unfortunate King Philip;
persecuted while living, slandered and dishonored when dead. If,
however, we consider even the prejudiced anecdotes furnished us by his
enemies, we may perceive in them traces of amiable and lofty character
sufficient to awaken sympathy for his fate and respect for his memory.
We find that, amidst all the harassing cares and ferocious passions of
constant warfare, he was alive to the softer feelings of connubial love
and paternal tenderness, and to the generous sentiment of friendship.
The captivity of his “beloved wife and only son” are mentioned with
exultation as causing him poignant misery; the death of any near friend
is triumphantly recorded as a new blow on his sensibilities; but the
treachery and desertion of many of his followers, in whose affections he
had confided, is said to have desolated his heart, and to have bereaved
him of all further comfort. He was a patriot attached to his native
soil—a prince true to his subjects, and indignant of their wrongs—a
soldier, daring in battle, firm in adversity, patient of fatigue, of
hunger, of every variety of bodily suffering, and ready to perish in
the cause he had espoused. Proud of heart, and with an untamable love
of natural liberty, he preferred to enjoy it among the beasts of the
forests or in the dismal and famished recesses of swamps and morasses,
rather than bow his haughty spirit to submission, and live dependent and
despised in the ease and luxury of the settlements. With heroic qualities
and bold achievements that would have graced a civilized warrior and have
rendered him the theme of the poet and the historian, he lived a wanderer
and a fugitive in his native land, and went down, like a lonely bark
foundering amid darkness and tempest—without a pitying eye to weep his
fall or a friendly hand to record his struggle.
NOTES AND QUESTIONS
=Biography.= Washington Irving (1783-1859) was born in New York
City in the very year in which the Treaty of Peace that ended the
Revolutionary War was signed. He was destined to do for American
literature what the War had already done for the American government
and people—make it respected among all nations. Irving’s mother said,
“Washington’s great work is done; let us name our boy Washington,”
little dreaming when thus naming him after the Father of his Country
that he should one day come to be called the “Father of American
Letters.”
On April 30, 1789, when this little boy was six years old, his father
took him to Federal Hall in Wall Street, to witness Washington’s
inauguration as the first president of the United States. It is told
that President Washington laid his hand kindly on the head of his
little namesake and gave him his blessing.
Young Washington Irving led a happy life, rambling in his boyhood
about every nook and corner of the city and the adjacent woods,
which at that time were not very far to seek, idling about the busy
wharves, making occasional trips up the lordly Hudson, roaming,
gun in hand, along its banks and over the neighboring Kaatskills,
listening to the tales of old Dutch landlords and gossipy old Dutch
housewives. When he became a young man he wove these old tales,
scenes, experiences, and much more that his imagination and his merry
humor added, into some of the most rollicking, mirthful stories that
had been read in many a day. The first of these was a burlesque
_History of New York_, purporting to have been found among the papers
of a certain old Dutch burgher by the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker
(1809). This may be said to have been his first important work. It
made him instantly famous. But better than that, it silenced the
sneers of the English critics who, up to that time, had been asking
contemptuously, “Who reads an American book?” and set them all to
reading and laughing over it with the rest of the world. It also
showed to Americans as well as to foreigners what wealth of literary
material this new country already possessed in its local legends and
history.
Ten years later, during his residence in England (1819-20), Irving
published _The Sketch Book_, containing the inimitable “Rip van
Winkle” and the delightful “Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” This may be
said to mark the real beginning of American literature.
A visit to Spain resulted in _The Alhambra_ and _The Life of
Columbus_, descriptive and historical works in which Irving won
as great success as he had attained with his humorous tales. Then
followed some years of quiet life at his beautiful home, Sunnyside,
near Tarrytown on the Hudson, in the midst of the favorite haunts of
his boyhood days and the scenes which his pen had immortalized. He
was not idle, however, for a half-dozen works appeared during these
stay-at-home years, some of them growing out of his travels through
our then rapidly expanding West. Only once more did he leave his
native shores, when he served as Minister to Spain (1842-46). But
through all his life he seems to have cherished a patriotic reverence
for the great American whose name he bore, and now, as the crowning
work of his ripe old age, he devoted his last years to completing his
_Life of Washington_, the fifth and final volume of which appeared
but a few months before his death on November 28, 1859. His genial,
cheerful nature shines through all his works and makes him still, as
his friend Thackeray said of him in his lifetime, “beloved of all the
world.”
=Discussion.= 1. What effect does Irving say civilized life has
upon traits of native character? 2. Explain the comparison,
“Society is like a lawn.” 3. Who was Philip of Pokanoket? 4. What
“league of peace” did Massasoit make with the Plymouth settlers?
5. Give an account of Alexander’s career as Sachem. 6. What was
the attitude of the white settlers toward Philip? 7. What evidence
of friendliness toward the settlers did he give? 8. What omens
disturbed the Indians? 9. What natural explanation can you give for
these “awful warnings”? 10. Give a brief account of the Indian war
that followed. 11. Describe the death of King Philip. 12. Point
out evidences of military ability on the part of King Philip. 13.
What traces of lofty character does Philip show in the face of
persecution? 14. Read passages that show his courage. 15. Does Irving
give you the impression that the white settlers may have been partly
responsible for the conflict with King Philip and his followers?
16. Other interesting books dealing with Indian life are Cooper’s
_Leather Stocking Tales_ and his _The Last of the Mohicans_; have
you read these? 17. Pronounce the following: attributes; aborigines;
Sachem; amity; tenacious; haunts; implacable; simultaneous; patron;
mischievous; revolt; indicative; harassed.
=Phrases=
artificially cultivated, 409, 11
vegetating in spontaneous hardihood, 409, 12
petty deceptions, 409, 19
affects so many generous sentiments, 409, 19
impulses of his inclination, 410, 2
dictates of his judgment, 410, 2
smiling verdure, 410, 6
footsteps of civilization, 410, 14
sterling coinage, 410, 19
any authentic traces, 410, 31
dim twilight of tradition, 410, 32
doleful forebodings, 411, 5
rites of primitive hospitality, 411, 13
encroaching zeal, 411, 27
proudly tenacious, 412, 4
hereditary rights and dignity, 412, 4
intrusive policy, 412, 5
after the toils of the chase, 412, 19
sovereign dignity, 412, 20
implacable hostility, 412, 32
superior adroitness, 413, 5
easily provoked hostilities, 413, 7
proneness to suspicion, 413, 25
ignominious punishment, 414, 18
exasperated the passions, 414, 19
perfidiously despatched, 414, 28
religious abstraction, 415, 6
superstitious fancies, 415, 8
frightful chimeras of witchcraft, 415, 9
portentous sights and sounds, 415, 25
capacious mind, 416, 19
casual exploits, 416, 22
fertility of expedients, 416, 26
impending ravages, 416, 37
lugubrious hemlocks, 417, 18
possessed of ubiquity, 418, 2
perfidious instigations, 418, 20
legitimate avenger, 418, 24
comparative facility, 418, 34
incursions of the conquerors, 420, 6
subdue the resolution, 422, 3
suborned by the whites, 422, 5
sullen grandeur, 423, 15
savage sublimity, 423, 18
graced a civilized warrior, 424, 22
THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
MILES STANDISH
In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims,
To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,
Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan leather,
Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Captain.
Buried in thought he seemed, with his hands behind him, and pausing
Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of warfare,
Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber—
Cutlass and corselet of steel, and his trusty sword of Damascus,
Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical Arabic sentence,
While underneath, in a corner, were fowling-piece, musket, and matchlock.
Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic,
Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron;
Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already
Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in November.
Near him was seated John Alden, his friend, and household companion,
Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the window;
Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon complexion,
Having the dew of his youth, and the beauty thereof, as the captives
Whom Saint Gregory saw, and exclaimed, “Not Angles but Angels.”
Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the May Flower.
Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe interrupting,
Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth.
“Look at these arms,” he said, “the warlike weapons that hang here,
Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection!
This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flanders; this
breast-plate,
Well I remember the day! once saved my life in a skirmish;
Here in front you can see the very dint of the bullet
Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish arcabucero.
Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish
Would at this moment be mold, in their grave in the Flemish morasses.”
Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up from his writing:
“Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the speed of the bullet;
He in his mercy preserved you, to be our shield and our weapon!”
Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words of the stripling:
“See, how bright they are burnished, as if in an arsenal hanging;
That is because I have done it myself, and not left it to others.
Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an excellent adage;
So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and your ink-horn.
Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible army,
Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest and his matchlock,
Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and pillage,
And, like Cæsar, I know the name of each of my soldiers!”
This he said with a smile, that danced in his eyes, as the sunbeams
Dance on the waves of the sea, and vanish again in a moment.
Alden laughed as he wrote, and still the Captain continued:
“Look! you can see from this window my brazen howitzer planted
High on the roof of the church, a preacher who speaks to the purpose,
Steady, straightforward, and strong, with irresistible logic,
Orthodox, flashing conviction right into the hearts of the heathen.
Now we are ready, I think, for any assault of the Indians;
Let them come, if they like, and the sooner they try it the better—
Let them come if they like, be it sagamore, sachem, or pow-wow,
Aspinet, Samoset, Corbitant, Squanto, or Tokamahamon!”
Long at the window he stood, and wistfully gazed on the landscape,
Washed with a cold gray mist, the vapory breath of the east wind,
Forest and meadow and hill, and the steel-blue rim of the ocean,
Lying silent and sad, in the afternoon shadows and sunshine.
Over his countenance flitted a shadow like those on the landscape,
Gloom intermingled with light; and his voice was subdued with emotion,
Tenderness, pity, regret, as after a pause he proceeded:
“Yonder there, on the hill by the sea, lies buried Rose Standish;
Beautiful rose of love, that bloomed for me by the wayside!
She was the first to die of all who came in the May Flower!
Green above her is growing the field of wheat we have sown there,
Better to hide from the Indian scouts the graves of our people,
Lest they should count them and see how many already have perished!”
Sadly his face he averted, and strode up and down, and was thoughtful.
Fixed to the opposite wall was a shelf of books, and among them
Prominent three, distinguished alike for bulk and for binding:
Bariffe’s Artillery Guide, and the Commentaries of Cæsar,
Out of the Latin translated by Arthur Goldinge of London,
And, as if guarded by these, between them was standing the Bible.
Musing a moment before them, Miles Standish paused, as if doubtful
Which of the three he should choose for his consolation and comfort,
Whether the wars of the Hebrews, the famous campaigns of the Romans,
Or the Artillery practice, designed for belligerent Christians.
Finally down from its shelf he dragged the ponderous Roman,
Seated himself at the window, and opened the book, and in silence
Turned o’er the well-worn leaves, where thumb-marks thick on the margin,
Like the trample of feet, proclaimed the battle was hottest.
Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling,
Busily writing epistles important, to go by the May Flower,
Ready to sail on the morrow, or next day at latest, God willing!
Homeward bound with the tidings of all that terrible winter,
Letters written by Alden, and full of the name of Priscilla,
Full of the name and the fame of the Puritan maiden Priscilla!
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP
Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling,
Or an occasional sigh from the laboring heart of the Captain,
Reading the marvelous words and achievements of Julius Cæsar.
After a while he exclaimed, as he smote with his hands, palm downwards,
Heavily on the page: “A wonderful man was this Cæsar!
You are a writer, and I am a fighter, but here is a fellow
Who could both write and fight, and in both was equally skillful!”
Straightway answered and spake John Alden, the comely, the youthful:
“Yes, he was equally skilled, as you say, with his pen and his weapons.
Somewhere have I read, but where I forget, he could dictate
Seven letters at once, at the same time writing his memoirs.”
“Truly,” continued the Captain, not heeding or hearing the other,
“Truly a wonderful man was Caius Julius Cæsar!
Better be first, he said, in a little Iberian village,
Than be second in Rome, and I think he was right when he said it.
Twice was he married before he was twenty, and many times after;
Battles five hundred he fought, and a thousand cities he conquered;
He, too, fought in Flanders, as he himself has recorded;
Finally he was stabbed by his friend, the orator Brutus!
Now, do you know what he did on a certain occasion in Flanders,
When the rear-guard of his army retreated, the front giving way too,
And the immortal Twelfth Legion was crowded so closely together
There was no room for their swords? Why, he seized a shield from a
soldier,
Putting himself straight at the head of his troops, and commanded the
captains,
Calling on each by his name, to order forward the ensigns;
Then to widen the ranks, and give more room for their weapons;
So he won the day, the battle of something-or-other.
That’s what I always say: if you wish a thing to be well done,
You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!”
All was silent again; the Captain continued his reading.
Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling
Writing epistles important to go next day by the May Flower,
Filled with the name and the fame of the Puritan maiden Priscilla;
Every sentence began or closed with the name of Priscilla,
Till the treacherous pen, to which he confided the secret,
Strove to betray it by singing and shouting the name of Priscilla!
Finally closing his book, with a bang of the ponderous cover,
Sudden and loud as the sound of a soldier grounding his musket,
Thus to the young man spake Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth:
“When you have finished your work, I have something important to tell
you.
Be not however in haste; I can wait; I shall not be impatient!”
Straightway Alden replied, as he folded the last of his letters,
Pushing his papers aside, and giving respectful attention:
“Speak; for whenever you speak, I am always ready to listen,
Always ready to hear whatever pertains to Miles Standish.”
Thereupon answered the Captain, embarrassed, and culling his phrases:
“’Tis not good for a man to be alone, say the Scriptures.
This I have said before, and again and again I repeat it;
Every hour in the day, I think it, and feel it, and say it.
Since Rose Standish died, my life has been weary and dreary;
Sick at heart have I been, beyond the healing of friendship.
Oft in my lonely hours have I thought of the maiden Priscilla.
She is alone in the world; her father and mother and brother
Died in the winter together; I saw her going and coming,
Now to the grave of the dead, and now to the bed of the dying,
Patient, courageous, and strong, and said to myself, that if ever
There were angels on earth, as there are angels in heaven,
Two have I seen and known; and the angel whose name is Priscilla
Holds in my desolate life the place which the other abandoned.
Long have I cherished the thought, but never have dared to reveal it,
Being a coward in this, though valiant enough for the most part.
Go to the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of Plymouth,
Say that a blunt old Captain, a man not of words but of actions,
Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart of a soldier.
Not in these words, you know, but this in short is my meaning;
I am a maker of war, and not a maker of phrases.
You, who are bred as a scholar, can say it in elegant language,
Such as you read in your books of the pleadings and wooings of lovers,
Such as you think best adapted to win the heart of a maiden.”
When he had spoken, John Alden, the fair-haired, taciturn stripling,
All aghast at his words, surprised, embarrassed, bewildered,
Trying to mask his dismay by treating the subject with lightness,
Trying to smile, and yet feeling his heart stand still in his bosom,
Just as a timepiece stops in a house that is stricken by lightning,
Thus made answer and spake, or rather stammered than answered:
“Such a message as that I am sure I should mangle and mar it;
If you would have it well done—I am only repeating your maxim—
You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!”
But with the air of a man whom nothing can turn from his purpose,
Gravely shaking his head, made answer the Captain of Plymouth:
“Truly the maxim is good, and I do not mean to gainsay it;
But we must use it discreetly, and not waste powder for nothing.
Now, as I said before, I was never a maker of phrases.
I can march up to a fortress and summon the place to surrender,
But march up to a woman with such a proposal, I dare not.
I’m not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the mouth of a cannon,
But of a thundering ‘No!’ point-blank from the mouth of a woman,
That I confess I’m afraid of, nor am I ashamed to confess it!
So you must grant my request, for you are an elegant scholar,
Having the graces of speech, and skill in the turning of phrases.”
Taking the hand of his friend, who still was reluctant and doubtful,
Holding it long in his own, and pressing it kindly, he added:
“Though I have spoken thus lightly, yet deep is the feeling that
prompts me;
Surely you cannot refuse what I ask in the name of our friendship!”
Then made answer John Alden: “The name of friendship is sacred;
What you demand in that name, I have not the power to deny you!”
So the strong will prevailed, subduing and molding the gentler,
Friendship prevailed over love, and Alden went on his errand.
THE LOVER’S ERRAND
So the strong will prevailed, and Alden went on his errand,
Out of the street of the village, and into the paths of the forest,
Into the tranquil woods, where bluebirds and robins were building
Towns in the populous trees, with hanging gardens of verdure,
Peaceful, aerial cities of joy and affection and freedom.
All around him was calm, but within him commotion and conflict,
Love contending with friendship, and self with each generous impulse.
To and fro in his breast his thoughts were heaving and dashing,
As in a foundering ship, with every roll of the vessel,
Washes the bitter sea, the merciless surge of the ocean!
“Must I relinquish it all,” he cried with a wild lamentation,
“Must I relinquish it all, the joy, the hope, the illusion?
Was it for this I have loved, and waited, and worshiped in silence?
Was it for this I have followed the flying fleet and the shadow
Over the wintry sea, to the desolate shores of New England?
Truly the heart is deceitful, and out of its depths of corruption
Rise, like an exhalation, the misty phantoms of passion;
Angels of light they seem, but are only delusions of Satan.
All is clear to me now; I feel it, I see it distinctly!
This is the hand of the Lord; it is laid upon me in anger,
For I have followed too much the heart’s desires and devices,
Worshiping Astaroth blindly, and impious idols of Baal.
This is the cross I must bear; the sin and the swift retribution.”
So through the Plymouth woods John Alden went on his errand;
Crossing the brook at the ford, where it brawled over pebble and
shallow,
Gathering still, as he went, the May-flowers blooming around him,
Fragrant, filling the air with a strange and wonderful sweetness,
Children lost in the woods, and covered with leaves in their slumber.
“Puritan flowers,” he said, “and the type of Puritan maidens,
Modest and simple and sweet, the very type of Priscilla!
So I will take them to her; to Priscilla the May-flower of Plymouth,
Modest and simple and sweet, as a parting gift will I take them;
Breathing their silent farewells, as they fade and wither and perish,
Soon to be thrown away as is the heart of the giver.”
So through the Plymouth woods John Alden went on his errand;
Came to an open space, and saw the disk of the ocean,
Sailless, somber, and cold with the comfortless breath of the east-wind;
Saw the new-built house, and people at work in a meadow;
Heard, as he drew near the door, the musical voice of Priscilla
Singing the hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan anthem,
Music that Luther sang to the sacred words of the Psalmist,
Full of the breath of the Lord, consoling and comforting many.
Then, as he opened the door, he beheld the form of the maiden
Seated beside her wheel, and the carded wool like a snow-drift
Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the ravenous spindle,
While with her foot on the treadle she guided the wheel in its motion.
Open wide on her lap lay the well-worn psalm-book of Ainsworth,
Printed in Amsterdam, the words and the music together,
Rough-hewn, angular notes, like stones in the wall of a churchyard,
Darkened and overhung by the running vine of the verses.
Such was the book from whose pages she sang the old Puritan anthem,
She, the Puritan girl, in the solitude of the forest,
Making the humble house and the modest apparel of home-spun
Beautiful with her beauty, and rich with the wealth of her being!
Over him rushed, like a wind that is keen and cold and relentless,
Thoughts of what might have been, and the weight and woe of his errand;
All the dreams that had faded, and all the hopes that had vanished,
All his life henceforth a dreary and tenantless mansion,
Haunted by vain regrets, and pallid, sorrowful faces.
Still he said to himself, and almost fiercely he said it,
“Let not him that putteth his hand to the plow look backwards;
Though the plowshare cut through the flowers of life to its fountains,
Though it pass o’er the graves of the dead and the hearts of the living,
It is the will of the Lord; and his mercy endureth forever!”
So he entered the house; and the hum of the wheel and the singing
Suddenly ceased; for Priscilla, aroused by his step on the threshold,
Rose as he entered, and gave him her hand, in signal of welcome,
Saying, “I knew it was you, when I heard your step in the passage;
For I was thinking of you, as I sat there singing and spinning.”
Awkward and dumb with delight, that a thought of him had been mingled
Thus in the sacred psalm, that came from the heart of the maiden,
Silent before her he stood, and gave her the flowers for an answer,
Finding no words for his thought. He remembered that day in the winter,
After the first great snow, when he broke a path from the village,
Reeling and plunging along through the drifts that encumbered the
doorway,
Stamping the snow from his feet as he entered the house, and Priscilla
Laughed at his snowy locks, and gave him a seat by the fireside,
Grateful and pleased to know he had thought of her in the snowstorm.
Had he but spoken then! perhaps not in vain had he spoken;
Now it was all too late; the golden moment had vanished!
So he stood there abashed, and gave her the flowers for an answer.
Then they sat down and talked of the birds and the beautiful
Springtime,
Talked of their friends at home, and the May Flower that sailed on
the morrow.
“I have been thinking all day,” said gently the Puritan maiden,
“Dreaming all night, and thinking all day, of the hedge-rows of England—
They are in blossom now, and the country is all like a garden;
Thinking of lanes and fields, and the song of the lark and the linnet,
Seeing the village street, and familiar faces of neighbors
Going about as of old, and stopping to gossip together,
And, at the end of the street, the village church, with the ivy
Climbing the old gray tower, and the quiet graves in the churchyard.
Kind are the people I live with, and dear to me my religion;
Still my heart is so sad, that I wish myself back in Old England.
You will say it is wrong, but I cannot help it; I almost
Wish myself back in Old England, I feel so lonely and wretched.”
Thereupon answered the youth:—“Indeed I do not condemn you;
Stouter hearts than a woman’s have quailed in this terrible winter.
Yours is tender and trusting, and needs a stronger to lean on;
So I have come to you now, with an offer and proffer of marriage
Made by a good man and true, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth!”
Thus he delivered his message, the dexterous writer of letters—
Did not embellish the theme, nor array it in beautiful phrases,
But came straight to the point, and blurted it out like a schoolboy;
Even the Captain himself could hardly have said it more bluntly.
Mute with amazement and sorrow, Priscilla the Puritan maiden
Looked into Alden’s face, her eyes dilated with wonder,
Feeling his words like a blow, that stunned her and rendered her
speechless;
Till at length she exclaimed, interrupting the ominous silence:
“If the great Captain of Plymouth is so very eager to wed me,
Why does he not come himself, and take the trouble to woo me?
If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth the winning!”
Then John Alden began explaining and smoothing the matter,
Making it worse as he went, by saying the Captain was busy
Had no time for such things;—such things! the words grating harshly
Fell on the ear of Priscilla; and swift as a flash she made answer:
“Has he no time for such things, as you call it, before he is married,
Would he be likely to find it, or make it, after the wedding?
That is the way with you men; you don’t understand us, you cannot.
When you have made up your minds, after thinking of this one and
that one,
Choosing, selecting, rejecting, comparing one with another,
Then you make known your desire, with abrupt and sudden avowal,
And are offended and hurt, and indignant perhaps, that a woman
Does not respond at once to a love that she never suspected,
Does not attain at a bound the height to which you have been climbing.
This is not right nor just; for surely a woman’s affection
Is not a thing to be asked for, and had for only the asking.
When one is truly in love, one not only says it, but shows it.
Had he but waited awhile, had he only showed that he loved me,
Even this Captain of yours—who knows?—at last might have won me,
Old and rough as he is; but now it never can happen.”
Still John Alden went on, unheeding the words of Priscilla,
Urging the suit of his friend, explaining, persuading, expanding;
Spoke of his courage and skill, and of all his battles in Flanders,
How with the people of God he had chosen to suffer affliction,
How, in return for his zeal, they had made him Captain of Plymouth;
He was a gentleman born, could trace his pedigree plainly
Back to Hugh Standish of Duxbury Hall, in Lancashire, England,
Who was the son of Ralph, and the grandson of Thurston de Standish;
Heir unto vast estates, of which he was basely defrauded,
Still bore the family arms, and had for his crest a cock argent
Combed and wattled gules, and all the rest of the blazon.
He was a man of honor, of noble and generous nature;
Though he was rough, he was kindly; she knew how during the winter
He had attended the sick, with a hand as gentle as woman’s;
Somewhat hasty and hot, he could not deny it, and headstrong,
Stern as a soldier might be, but hearty, and placable always,
Not to be laughed at and scorned, because he was little of stature;
For he was great of heart, magnanimous, courtly, courageous;
Any woman in Plymouth, nay any woman in England,
Might be happy and proud to be called the wife of Miles Standish!
But as he warmed and glowed, in his simple and eloquent language,
Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his rival,
Archly the maiden smiled, and, with eyes overrunning with laughter,
Said, in a tremulous voice, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?”
JOHN ALDEN
Into the open air John Alden, perplexed and bewildered,
Rushed like a man insane, and wandered alone by the seaside;
Paced up and down the sands, and bared his head to the east wind,
Cooling his heated brow, and the fire and fever within him.
Slowly as out of the heavens, with apocalyptical splendors,
Sank the City of God, in the vision of John the Apostle,
So, with its cloudy walls of chrysolite, jasper, and sapphire,
Sank the broad red sun, and over its turrets uplifted
Glimmered the golden reed of the angel who measured the city.
“Welcome, O wind of the East!” he exclaimed in his wild exultation,
“Welcome, O wind of the East, from the caves of the misty Atlantic!
Blowing o’er fields of dulse, and measureless meadows of sea-grass,
Blowing o’er rocky wastes, and the grottoes and gardens of ocean!
Lay thy cold, moist hand on my burning forehead, and wrap me
Close in thy garments of mist, to allay the fever within me!”
Like an awakened conscience, the sea was moaning and tossing,
Beating remorseful and loud the mutable sands of the seashore.
Fierce in his soul was the struggle and tumult of passions contending;
Love triumphant and crowned, and friendship wounded and bleeding,
Passionate cries of desire, and importunate pleadings of duty!
“Is it my fault,” he said, “that the maiden has chosen between us?
Is it my fault that he failed—my fault that I am the victor?”
Then within him there thundered a voice, like the voice of the Prophet:
“It hath displeased the Lord!”—and he thought of David’s transgression,
Bathsheba’s beautiful face, and his friend in the front of the battle!
Shame and confusion of guilt, and abasement and self-condemnation,
Overwhelmed him at once; and he cried in the deepest contrition:
“It hath displeased the Lord! It is the temptation of Satan!”
Then, uplifting his head, he looked at the sea, and beheld there
Dimly the shadowy form of the May Flower riding at anchor,
Rocked on the rising tide, and ready to sail on the morrow;
Heard the voices of men through the mist, the rattle of cordage
Thrown on the deck, the shouts of the mate, and the sailors’ “Ay, ay,
sir!”
Clear and distinct, but not loud, in the dripping air of the twilight.
Still for a moment he stood, and listened, and stared at the vessel,
Then went hurriedly on, as one who, seeing a phantom,
Stops, then quickens his pace, and follows the beckoning shadow.
“Yes, it is plain to me now,” he murmured; “the hand of the Lord is
Leading me out of the land of darkness, the bondage of error,
Through the sea, that shall lift the walls of its waters around me,
Hiding me, cutting me off, from the cruel thoughts that pursue me.
Back will I go o’er the ocean, this dreary land will abandon,
Her whom I may not love, and him whom my heart has offended.
Better to be in my grave in the green old churchyard in England,
Close by my mother’s side, and among the dust of my kindred;
Better be dead and forgotten, than living in shame and dishonor!
Sacred and safe and unseen, in the dark of the narrow chamber
With me my secret shall lie, like a buried jewel that glimmers
Bright on the hand that is dust, in the chambers of silence and darkness—
Yes, as the marriage ring of the great espousal hereafter!”
Thus as he spake, he turned, in the strength of his strong resolution,
Leaving behind him the shore, and hurried along in the twilight,
Through the congenial gloom of the forest silent and somber,
Till he beheld the lights in the seven houses of Plymouth,
Shining like seven stars in the dusk and mist of the evening.
Soon he entered his door, and found the redoubtable Captain
Sitting alone, and absorbed in the martial pages of Cæsar,
Fighting some great campaign in Hainault or Brabant or Flanders.
“Long have you been on your errand,” he said with a cheery demeanor,
Even as one who is waiting an answer, and fears not the issue.
“Not far off is the house, although the woods are between us;
But you have lingered so long, that while you were going and coming
I have fought ten battles and sacked and demolished a city.
Come, sit down, and in order relate to me all that has happened.”
Then John Alden spake, and related the wondrous adventure,
From beginning to end, minutely, just as it happened;
How he had seen Priscilla, and how he had sped in his courtship,
Only smoothing a little, and softening down her refusal.
But when he came at length to the words Priscilla had spoken,
Words so tender and cruel: “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?”
Up leaped the Captain of Plymouth, and stamped on the floor, till his
armor
Clanged on the wall, where it hung, with a sound of sinister omen.
All his pent-up wrath burst forth in a sudden explosion,
Even as a hand-grenade, that scatters destruction around it.
Wildly he shouted, and loud: “John Alden! you have betrayed me!
Me, Miles Standish, your friend! have supplanted, defrauded, betrayed me!
One of my ancestors ran his sword through the heart of Wat Tyler;
Who shall prevent me from running my own through the heart of a traitor?
Yours is the greater treason, for yours is a treason to friendship!
You, who lived under my roof, whom I cherished and loved as a brother;
You, who have fed at my board, and drunk at my cup, to whose keeping
I have intrusted my honor, my thoughts the most sacred and secret—
You too, Brutus! ah woe to the name of friendship hereafter!
Brutus was Cæsar’s friend, and you were mine, but henceforward
Let there be nothing between us save war, and implacable hatred!”
So spake the Captain of Plymouth, and strode about in the chamber,
Chafing and choking with rage; like cords were the veins on his temples.
But in the midst of his anger a man appeared at the doorway,
Bringing in uttermost haste a message of urgent importance,
Rumors of danger and war and hostile incursions of Indians!
Straightway the Captain paused, and, without further question or parley,
Took from the nail on the wall his sword with its scabbard of iron,
Buckled the belt round his waist, and, frowning fiercely, departed.
Alden was left alone. He heard the clank of the scabbard
Growing fainter and fainter, and dying away in the distance.
Then he arose from his seat, and looked forth into the darkness,
Felt the cool air blow on his cheek, that was hot with the insult,
Lifted his eyes to the heavens, and, folding his hands as in childhood,
Prayed in the silence of night to the Father who seeth in secret.
Meanwhile the choleric Captain strode wrathful away to the council,
Found it already assembled, impatiently waiting his coming;
Men in the middle of life, austere and grave in deportment,
Only one of them old, the hill that was nearest to heaven,
Covered with snow, but erect, the excellent Elder of Plymouth.
God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting,
Then had sifted the wheat, as the living seed of a nation;
So say the chronicles old, and such is the faith of the people!
Near them was standing an Indian, in attitude stern and defiant,
Naked down to the waist, and grim and ferocious in aspect;
While on the table before them was lying unopened a Bible,
Ponderous, bound in leather, brass-studded, printed in Holland,
And beside it outstretched the skin of a rattlesnake glittered,
Filled, like a quiver, with arrows; a signal and challenge of warfare,
Brought by the Indian, and speaking with arrowy tongues of defiance.
This Miles Standish beheld, as he entered, and heard them debating
What were an answer befitting the hostile message and menace,
Talking of this and that, contriving, suggesting, objecting;
One voice only for peace, and that the voice of the Elder,
Judging it wise and well that some at least were converted,
Rather than any were slain, for this was but Christian behavior!
Then outspoke Miles Standish, the stalwart Captain of Plymouth,
Muttering deep in his throat, for his voice was husky with anger:
“What! do you mean to make war with milk and the water of roses?
Is it to shoot red squirrels you have your howitzer planted
There on the roof of the church, or is it to shoot red devils?
Truly the only tongue that is understood by a savage
Must be the tongue of fire that speaks from the mouth of the cannon!”
Thereupon answered and said the excellent Elder of Plymouth,
Somewhat amazed and alarmed at this irreverent language:
“Not so thought St. Paul, nor yet the other Apostles;
Not from the cannon’s mouth were the tongues of fire they spake with!”
But unheeded fell this mild rebuke on the Captain,
Who had advanced to the table, and thus continued discoursing:
“Leave this matter to me, for to me by right it pertaineth.
War is a terrible trade; but in the cause that is righteous,
Sweet is the smell of powder; and thus I answer the challenge!”
Then from the rattlesnake’s skin, with a sudden, contemptuous gesture,
Jerking the Indian arrows, he filled it with powder and bullets
Full to the very jaws, and handed it back to the savage,
Saying, in thundering tones: “Here, take it! this is your answer!”
Silently out of the room then glided the glistening savage,
Bearing the serpent’s skin, and seeming himself like a serpent,
Winding his sinuous way in the dark to the depths of the forest.
THE SAILING OF THE MAY FLOWER
Just in the gray of the dawn, as the mists uprose from the meadows,
There was a stir and a sound in the slumbering village of Plymouth;
Clanging and clicking of arms, and the order imperative, “Forward!”
Given in tone suppressed, a tramp of feet, and then silence.
Figures ten, in the mist, marched slowly out of the village.
Standish the stalwart it was, with eight of his valorous army,
Led by their Indian guide, by Hobomok, friend of the white men,
Northward marching to quell the sudden revolt of the savage.
Giants they seemed in the mist, or the mighty men of King David;
Giants in heart they were, who believed in God and the Bible—
Ay, who believed in the smiting of Midianites and Philistines.
Over them gleamed far off the crimson banners of morning;
Under them loud on the sands, the serried billows, advancing,
Fired along the line, and in regular order retreated.
Many a mile had they marched, when at length the village of Plymouth
Woke from its sleep, and arose, intent on its manifold labors.
Sweet was the air and soft, and slowly the smoke from the chimneys
Rose over roofs of thatch, and pointed steadily eastward;
Men came forth from the doors, and paused and talked of the weather,
Said that the wind had changed, and was blowing fair for the May Flower;
Talked of their Captain’s departure, and all the dangers that menaced,
He being gone, the town, and what should be done in his absence.
Merrily sang the birds, and the tender voices of women
Consecrated with hymns the common cares of the household.
Out of the sea rose the sun, and the billows rejoiced at his coming;
Beautiful were his feet on the purple tops of the mountains;
Beautiful on the sails of the May Flower riding at anchor,
Battered and blackened and worn by all the storms of the winter.
Loosely against her masts was hanging and flapping her canvas,
Rent by so many gales, and patched by the hands of the sailors.
Suddenly from her side, as the sun rose over the ocean,
Darted a puff of smoke, and floated seaward; anon rang
Loud over field and forest the cannon’s roar, and the echoes
Heard and repeated the sound, the signal-gun of departure!
Ah! but with louder echoes replied the hearts of the people!
Meekly, in voices subdued, the chapter was read from the Bible,
Meekly the prayer was begun, but ended in fervent entreaty!
Then from their houses in haste came forth the Pilgrims of Plymouth,
Men and women and children, all hurrying down to the seashore,
Eager, with tearful eyes, to say farewell to the May Flower,
Homeward bound o’er the sea, and leaving them here in the desert.
Foremost among them was Alden. All night he had lain without slumber,
Turning and tossing about in the heat and unrest of his fever.
He had beheld Miles Standish, who came back late from the council,
Stalking into the room, and heard him mutter and murmur;
Sometimes it seemed a prayer, and sometimes it sounded like swearing.
Once he had come to the bed, and stood there a moment in silence;
Then he had turned away, and said: “I will not awake him;
Let him sleep on, it is best; for what is the use of more talking!”
Then he extinguished the light, and threw himself down on his pallet.
Dressed as he was, and ready to start at the break of the morning—
Covered himself with the cloak he had worn in his campaigns in Flanders—
Slept as a soldier sleeps in his bivouac, ready for action.
But with the dawn he arose; in the twilight Alden beheld him
Put on his corselet of steel, and all the rest of his armor,
Buckle about his waist his trusty blade of Damascus,
Take from the corner his musket, and so stride out of the chamber.
Often the heart of the youth had burned and yearned to embrace him,
Often his lips had essayed to speak, imploring for pardon,
All the old friendship came back, with its tender and grateful emotions.
But his pride overmastered the noble nature within him—
Pride, and the sense of his wrong, and the burning fire of the insult.
So he beheld his friend departing in anger, but spake not,
Saw him go forth to danger, perhaps to death, and he spake not!
Then he arose from his bed, and heard what the people were saying,
Joined in the talk at the door, with Stephen and Richard and Gilbert,
Joined in the morning prayer, and in the reading of Scripture,
And, with the others, in haste went hurrying down to the seashore,
Down to the Plymouth Rock, that had been to their feet as a doorstep
Into a world unknown—the corner-stone of a nation!
There with his boat was the Master, already a little impatient
Lest he should lose the tide, or the wind might shift to the eastward,
Square-built, hearty, and strong, with an odor of ocean about him,
Speaking with this one and that, and cramming letters and parcels
Into his pockets capacious, and messages mingled together
Into his narrow brain, till at last he was wholly bewildered.
Nearer the boat stood Alden, with one foot placed on the gunwale,
One still firm on the rock, and talking at times with the sailors,
Seated erect on the thwarts, all ready and eager for starting.
He too was eager to go, and thus put an end to his anguish,
Thinking to fly from despair, that swifter than keel is or canvas,
Thinking to drown in the sea the ghost that would rise and pursue him.
But as he gazed on the crowd, he beheld the form of Priscilla
Standing dejected among them, unconscious of all that was passing.
Fixed were her eyes upon his, as if she divined his intention,
Fixed with a look so sad, so reproachful, imploring, and patient,
That with a sudden revulsion his heart recoiled from its purpose,
As from the verge of a crag, where one step more is destruction.
Strange is the heart of man, with its quick, mysterious instincts!
Strange is the life of man, and fatal or fated are moments,
Whereupon turn, as on hinges, the gates of the wall adamantine!
“Here I remain!” he exclaimed, as he looked at the heavens above him,
Thanking the Lord whose breath had scattered the mist and the madness,
Wherein, blind and lost, to death he was staggering headlong.
“Yonder snow-white cloud, that floats in the ether above me,
Seems like a hand that is pointing and beckoning over the ocean.
There is another hand, that is not so spectral and ghost-like,
Holding me, drawing me back, and clasping mine for protection.
Float, O hand of cloud, and vanish away in the ether!
Roll thyself up like a fist, to threaten and daunt me; I heed not
Either your warning or menace, or any omen of evil!
There is no land so sacred, nor air so pure and so wholesome,
As is the air she breathes, and the soil that is pressed by her
footsteps.
Here for her sake will I stay, and like an invisible presence
Hover around her forever, protecting, supporting her weakness;
Yes! as my foot was the first that stepped on this rock at the landing,
So, with the blessing of God, shall it be the last at the leaving!”
Meanwhile the Master alert, but with dignified air and important,
Scanning with watchful eye the tide and the wind and the weather,
Walked about on the sands; and the people crowded around him
Saying a few last words, and enforcing his careful remembrance.
Then, taking each by the hand, as if he were grasping a tiller,
Into the boat he sprang, and in haste shoved off to his vessel,
Glad in his heart to get rid of all this worry and flurry,
Glad to be gone from a land of sand and sickness and sorrow,
Short allowance of victual, and plenty of nothing but Gospel!
Lost in the sound of the oars was the last farewell of the Pilgrims.
O strong hearts and true! not one went back in the May Flower!
No, not one looked back, who had set his hand to this plowing!
Soon were heard on board the shouts and songs of the sailors
Heaving the windlass round, and hoisting the ponderous anchor.
Then the yards were braced, and all sails set to the west-wind,
Blowing steady and strong; and the May Flower sailed from the harbor,
Rounded the point of the Gurnet, and leaving far to the southward
Island and cape of sand, and the Field of the First Encounter,
Took the wind on her quarter, and stood for the open Atlantic,
Borne on the send of the sea, and the swelling hearts of the Pilgrims.
Long in silence they watched the receding sail of the vessel,
Much endeared to them all, as something living and human;
Then, as if filled with the spirit, and wrapt in a vision prophetic,
Baring his hoary head, the excellent Elder of Plymouth
Said, “Let us pray!” and they prayed and thanked the Lord and took
courage.
Mournfully sobbed the waves at the base of the rock, and above them
Bowed and whispered the wheat on the hill of death, and their kindred
Seemed to awake in their graves, and to join in the prayer that they
uttered.
Sun-illumined and white, on the eastern verge of the ocean
Gleamed the departing sail, like a marble slab in a graveyard;
Buried beneath it lay forever all hope of escaping.
Lo! as they turned to depart, they saw the form of an Indian,
Watching them from the hill; but while they spake with each other,
Pointing with outstretched hands, and saying, “Look!” he had vanished.
So they returned to their homes; but Alden lingered a little,
Musing alone on the shore, and watching the wash of the billows
Round the base of the rock, and the sparkle and flash of the sunshine,
Like the spirit of God, moving visibly over the waters.
PRISCILLA
Thus for a while he stood, and mused by the shore of the ocean,
Thinking of many things, and most of all of Priscilla;
And as if thought had the power to draw to itself, like the load-stone,
Whatsoever it touches, by subtle laws of its nature,
Lo! as he turned to depart, Priscilla was standing beside him.
“Are you so much offended you will not speak to me?” said she.
“Am I so much to blame, that yesterday, when you were pleading
Warmly the cause of another, my heart, impulsive and wayward,
Pleaded your own, and spake out, forgetful perhaps of decorum?
Certainly you can forgive me for speaking so frankly, for saying
What I ought not to have said, yet now I can never unsay it;
For there are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion,
That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,
Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.
Yesterday I was shocked, when I heard you speak of Miles Standish,
Praising his virtues, transforming his very defects into virtues,
Praising his courage and strength, and even his fighting in Flanders,
As if by fighting alone you could win the heart of a woman,
Quite overlooking yourself and the rest, in exalting your hero.
Therefore I spake as I did, by an irresistible impulse.
You will forgive me, I hope, for the sake of the friendship between us,
Which is too true and too sacred to be so easily broken!”
Thereupon answered John Alden, the scholar, the friend of Miles Standish:
“I was not angry with you, with myself alone I was angry,
Seeing how badly I managed the matter I had in my keeping.”
“No!” interrupted the maiden, with answer prompt and decisive;
“No; you are angry with me, for speaking so frankly and freely.
It was wrong, I acknowledge; for it is the fate of a woman
Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless,
Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence.
Hence is the inner life of so many suffering women
Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean rivers
Running through caverns of darkness, unheard, unseen, and unfruitful,
Chafing their channels of stone, with endless and profitless murmurs.”
Thereupon answered John Alden, the young man, the lover of women:
“Heaven forbid it, Priscilla; and truly they seem to me always
More like the beautiful rivers that watered the garden of Eden.
More like the river Euphrates, through deserts of Havilah flowing,
Filling the land with delight, and memories sweet of the garden!”
“Ah, by these words, I can see,” again interrupted the maiden,
“How very little you prize me, or care for what I am saying.
When from the depths of my heart, in pain and with secret misgiving,
Frankly I speak to you, asking for sympathy only and kindness,
Straightway you take up my words, that are plain and direct and in
earnest,
Turn them away from their meaning, and answer with flattering phrases.
This is not right, is not just, is not true to the best that is in you;
For I know and esteem you, and feel that your nature is noble,
Lifting mine up to a higher, a more ethereal level.
Therefore I value your friendship, and feel it perhaps the more keenly
If you say aught that implies I am only as one among many,
If you make use of those common and complimentary phrases
Most men think so fine, in dealing and speaking with women,
But which women reject as insipid, if not as insulting.”
Mute and amazed was Alden; and listened and looked at Priscilla,
Thinking he never had seen her more fair, more divine in her beauty.
He who but yesterday pleaded so glibly the cause of another,
Stood there embarrassed and silent, and seeking in vain for an answer.
So the maiden went on, and little divined or imagined
What was at work in his heart, that made him so awkward and speechless.
“Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we think, and in all things
Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred professions of friendship.
It is no secret I tell you, nor am I ashamed to declare it:
I have liked to be with you, to see you, to speak with you always.
So I was hurt at your words, and a little affronted to hear you
Urge me to marry your friend, though he were the Captain Miles Standish.
For I must tell you the truth: much more to me is your friendship
Than all the love he could give, were he twice the hero you think him.”
Then she extended her hand, and Alden, who eagerly grasped it,
Felt all the wounds in his heart, that were aching and bleeding so
sorely,
Healed by the touch of that hand, and he said, with a voice full of
feeling:
“Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship
Let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and dearest!”
Casting a farewell look at the glimmering sail of the May Flower,
Distant, but still in sight, and sinking below the horizon,
Homeward together they walked, with a strange, indefinite feeling,
That all the rest had departed and left them alone in the desert.
But, as they went through the fields in the blessing and smile of the
sunshine,
Lighter grew their hearts, and Priscilla said very archly:
“Now that our terrible Captain has gone in pursuit of the Indians,
Where he is happier far than he would be commanding a household,
You may speak boldly, and tell me of all that happened between you,
When you returned last night, and said how ungrateful you found me.”
Thereupon answered John Alden, and told her the whole of the story—
Told her his own despair, and the direful wrath of Miles Standish.
Whereat the maiden smiled, and said between laughing and earnest,
“He is a little chimney, and heated hot in a moment!”
But as he gently rebuked her, and told her how much he had suffered—
How he had even determined to sail that day in the May Flower,
And had remained for her sake, on hearing the dangers that threatened—
All her manner was changed, and she said with a faltering accent,
“Truly I thank you for this; how good you have been to me always!”
Thus, as a pilgrim devout, who toward Jerusalem journeys,
Taking three steps in advance, and one reluctantly backward,
Urged by importunate zeal, and withheld by pangs of contrition;
Slowly but steadily onward, receding yet ever advancing,
Journeyed this Puritan youth to the Holy Land of his longings,
Urged by the fervor of love, and withheld by remorseful misgivings.
THE MARCH OF MILES STANDISH
Meanwhile the stalwart Miles Standish was marching steadily northward,
Winding through forest and swamp, and along the trend of the seashore,
All day long, with hardly a halt, the fire of his anger
Burning and crackling within, and the sulphurous odor of powder
Seeming more sweet to his nostrils than all the scents of the forest.
Silent and moody he went, and much he revolved his discomfort;
He who was used to success, and to easy victories always,
Thus to be flouted, rejected, and laughed to scorn by a maiden,
Thus to be mocked and betrayed by the friend whom most he had trusted!
Ah! ’twas too much to be borne, and he fretted and chafed in his armor!
“I alone am to blame,” he muttered, “for mine was the folly.
What has a rough old soldier, grown grim and gray in the harness,
Used to the camp and its ways, to do with the wooing of maidens?
’Twas but a dream—let it pass—let it vanish like so many others!
What I thought was a flower, is only a weed, and is worthless;
Out of my heart will I pluck it, and throw it away, and henceforward
Be but a fighter of battles, a lover and wooer of dangers!”
Thus he revolved in his mind his sorry defeat and discomfort,
While he was marching by day or lying at night in the forest,
Looking up at the trees, and the constellations beyond them.
After a three days’ march he came to an Indian encampment
Pitched on the edge of a meadow, between the sea and the forest;
Women at work by the tents, and the warriors, horrid with war-paint,
Seated about a fire, and smoking and talking together;
Who, when they saw from afar the sudden approach of the white men,
Saw the flash of the sun on breast-plate and saber and musket,
Straightway leaped to their feet, and two, from among them advancing,
Came to parley with Standish, and offer him furs as a present;
Friendship was in their looks, but in their hearts there was hatred.
Braves of the tribe were these, and brothers gigantic in stature,
Huge as Goliath of Gath, or the terrible Og, king of Bashan;
One was Pecksuot named, and the other was called Wattawamat.
Round their necks were suspended their knives in scabbards of wampum,
Two-edged, trenchant knives, with points as sharp as a needle.
Other arms had they none, for they were cunning and crafty.
“Welcome, English!” they said—these words they had learned from the
traders
Touching at times on the coast, to barter and chaffer for peltries.
Then in their native tongue they began to parley with Standish,
Through his guide and interpreter, Hobomok, friend of the white man,
Begging for blankets and knives, but mostly for muskets and powder,
Kept by the white man, they said, concealed, with the plague, in his
cellars,
Ready to be let loose, and destroy his brother the red man!
But when Standish refused, and said he would give them the Bible,
Suddenly changing their tone, they began to boast and to bluster.
Then Wattawamat advanced with a stride in front of the other,
And, with a lofty demeanor, thus vauntingly spake to the Captain:
“Now Wattawamat can see, by the fiery eyes of the Captain,
Angry is he in his heart; but the heart of the brave Wattawamat
Is not afraid at the sight. He was not born of a woman,
But on a mountain, at night, from an oak-tree riven by lightning,
Forth he sprang at a bound, with all his weapons about him,
Shouting, ‘Who is there here to fight with the brave Wattawamat?’”
Then he unsheathed his knife, and, whetting the blade on his left hand,
Held it aloft and displayed a woman’s face on the handle,
Saying, with bitter expression and look of sinister meaning:
“I have another at home, with the face of a man on the handle;
By and by they shall marry; and there will be plenty of children!”
Then stood Pecksuot forth, self-vaunting, insulting Miles Standish;
While with his fingers he patted the knife that hung at his bosom,
Drawing it half from its sheath, and plunging it back, as he muttered:
“By and by it shall see; it shall eat; ah, ha! but shall speak not!
This is the mighty Captain the white men have sent to destroy us!
He is a little man; let him go and work with the women!”
Meanwhile Standish had noted the faces and figures of Indians
Peeping and creeping about from bush to tree in the forest,
Feigning to look for game, with arrows set on their bow-strings,
Drawing about him still closer and closer the net of their ambush.
But undaunted he stood, and dissembled and treated them smoothly;
So the old chronicles say, that were writ in the days of the fathers.
But when he heard their defiance, the boast, the taunt, and the insult,
All the hot blood of his race, of Sir Hugh and of Thurston de Standish,
Boiled and beat in his heart, and swelled in the veins of his temples.
Headlong he leaped on the boaster, and, snatching his knife from its
scabbard,
Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling backward, the savage
Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiendlike fierceness upon it.
Straight there arose from the forest the awful sound of the war-whoop,
And, like a flurry of snow on the whistling wind of December,
Swift and sudden and keen came a flight of feathery arrows.
Then came a cloud of smoke, and out of the cloud came the lightning,
Out of the lightning thunder; and death unseen ran before it.
Frightened, the savages fled for shelter in swamp and in thicket.
Hotly pursued and beset; but their sachem, the brave Wattawamat,
Fled not; he was dead. Unswerving and swift had a bullet
Passed through his brain, and he fell with both hands clutching the
greensward,
Seeming in death to hold back from his foe the land of his fathers.
There on the flowers of the meadow the warriors lay, and above them,
Silent, with folded arms, stood Hobomok, friend of the white man.
Smiling at length, he exclaimed to the stalwart Captain of Plymouth:
“Pecksuot bragged very loud, of his courage, his strength, and his
stature—
Mocked the great Captain, and called him a little man; but I see now
Big enough have you been to lay him speechless before you!”
Thus the first battle was fought and won by the stalwart Miles
Standish.
When the tidings thereof were brought to the village of Plymouth,
And as a trophy of war the head of the brave Wattawamat
Scowled from the roof of the fort, which at once was a church and a
fortress,
All who beheld it rejoiced, and praised the Lord, and took courage.
Only Priscilla averted her face from this specter of terror.
Thanking God in her heart that she had not married Miles Standish;
Shrinking, fearing almost, lest, coming home from his battles,
He should lay claim to her hand, as the prize and reward of his valor.
THE SPINNING-WHEEL
Month after month passed away, and in autumn the ships of the merchants
Came with kindred and friends, with cattle and corn for the Pilgrims.
All in the village was peace; the men were intent on their labors,
Busy with hewing and building, with garden-plot and with merestead,
Busy with breaking the glebe, and mowing the grass in the meadows,
Searching the sea for its fish, and hunting the deer in the forest.
All in the village was peace; but at times the rumor of warfare
Filled the air with alarm, and the apprehension of danger.
Bravely the stalwart Miles Standish was scouring the land with his
forces,
Waxing valiant in fight and defeating the alien armies,
Till his name had become a sound of fear to the nations.
Anger was still in his heart, but at times the remorse and contrition
Which in all noble natures succeed the passionate outbreak,
Came like a rising tide, that encounters the rush of a river,
Staying its current awhile, but making it bitter and brackish.
Meanwhile Alden at home had built him a new habitation.
Solid, substantial, of timber roughhewn from the firs of the forest.
Wooden-barred was the door, and the roof was covered with rushes;
Latticed the windows were, and the window-panes were of paper,
Oiled to admit the light, while wind and rain were excluded.
There too he dug a well, and around it planted an orchard;
Still may be seen to this day some trace of the well and the orchard.
Close to the house was the stall, where, safe and secure from annoyance,
Raghorn, the snow-white bull, that had fallen to Alden’s allotment
In the division of cattle, might ruminate in the night-time
Over the pastures he cropped, made fragrant by sweet penny-royal.
Oft when his labor was finished, with eager feet would the dreamer
Follow the pathway that ran through the woods to the house of Priscilla,
Led by illusions romantic and subtle deceptions of fancy,
Pleasure disguised as duty, and love in the semblance of friendship.
Ever of her he thought, when he fashioned the walls of his dwelling;
Ever of her he thought, when he delved in the soil of his garden;
Ever of her he thought, when he read in his Bible on Sunday
Praise of the virtuous woman, as she is described in the Proverbs—
How the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her always,
How all the days of her life she will do him good, and not evil,
How she seeketh the wool and the flax and worketh with gladness,
How she layeth her hand to the spindle and holdeth the distaff,
How she is not afraid of the snow for herself or her household,
Knowing her household are clothed with the scarlet cloth of her weaving!
So as she sat at her wheel one afternoon in the Autumn,
Alden, who opposite sat, and was watching her dexterous fingers,
As if the thread she was spinning were that of his life and his fortune,
After a pause in their talk, thus spake to the sound of the spindle.
“Truly, Priscilla,” he said, “when I see you spinning and spinning,
Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of others,
Suddenly you are transformed, are visibly changed in a moment;
You are no longer Priscilla, but Bertha the Beautiful Spinner.”
Here the light foot on the treadle grew swifter and swifter; the spindle
Uttered an angry snarl, and the thread snapped short in her fingers;
While the impetuous speaker, not heeding the mischief, continued:
“You are the beautiful Bertha, the spinner, the queen of Helvetia;
She whose story I read at a stall in the streets of Southampton,
Who, as she rode on her palfrey, o’er valley and meadow and mountain,
Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff fixed to her saddle.
She was so thrifty and good that her name passed into a proverb.
So shall it be with your own, when the spinning-wheel shall no longer
Hum in the house of the farmer, and fill its chambers with music.
Then shall the mothers, reproving, relate how it was in their childhood,
Praising the good old times, and the days of Priscilla the spinner!”
Straight uprose from her wheel the beautiful Puritan maiden,
Pleased with the praise of her thrift from him whose praise was the
sweetest,
Drew from the reel on the table a snowy skein of her spinning,
Thus making answer, meanwhile, to the flattering phrases of Alden:
“Come, you must not be idle; if I am a pattern for housewives,
Show yourself equally worthy of being the model of husbands.
Hold this skein on your hands, while I wind it, ready for knitting;
Then who knows but hereafter, when fashions have changed and the manners,
Fathers may talk to their sons of the good old times of John Alden!”
Thus, with a jest and a laugh, the skein on his hands she adjusted,
He sitting awkwardly there, with his arms extended before him,
She standing graceful, erect, and winding the thread from his fingers,
Sometimes chiding a little his clumsy manner of holding,
Sometimes touching his hands, as she disentangled expertly
Twist or knot in the yarn, unawares—for how could she help it?—
Sending electrical thrills through every nerve in his body.
Lo! in the midst of this scene, a breathless messenger entered,
Bringing in hurry and heat the terrible news from the village.
Yes; Miles Standish was dead!—an Indian had brought them the tidings—
Slain by a poisoned arrow, shot down in the front of the battle,
Into an ambush beguiled, cut off with the whole of his forces;
All the town would be burned, and all the people be murdered!
Such were the tidings of evil that burst on the hearts of the hearers.
Silent and statue-like stood Priscilla, her face looking backward
Still at the face of the speaker, her arms uplifted in horror;
But John Alden, upstarting, as if the barb of the arrow
Piercing the heart of his friend had struck his own, and had sundered
Once and forever the bonds that held him bound as a captive,
Wild with excess of sensation, the awful delight of his freedom,
Mingled with pain and regret, unconscious of what he was doing.
Clasped, almost with a groan, the motionless form of Priscilla,
Pressing her close to his heart, as forever his own, and exclaiming:
“Those whom the Lord hath united, let no man put them asunder!”
Even as rivulets twain, from distant and separate sources,
Seeing each other afar, as they leap from the rocks, and pursuing
Each one its devious path, but drawing nearer and nearer,
Rush together at last, at their trysting-place in the forest;
So these lives that had run thus far in separate channels,
Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and flowing asunder,
Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and nearer,
Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the other.
THE WEDDING DAY
Forth from the curtain of clouds, from the tent of purple and scarlet,
Issued the sun, the great High-Priest, in his garments resplendent,
Holiness unto the Lord, in letters of light, on his forehead,
Round the hem of his robe the golden bells and pomegranates.
Blessing the world he came, and the bars of vapor beneath him
Gleamed like a grate of brass, and the sea at his feet was a laver!
This was the wedding morn of Priscilla the Puritan maiden.
Friends were assembled together; the Elder and Magistrate also
Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like the Law and the
Gospel,
One with the sanction of earth and one with the blessing of heaven.
Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth and of Boaz.
Softly the youth and the maiden repeated the words of betrothal,
Taking each other for husband and wife in the Magistrate’s presence,
After the Puritan way, and the laudable custom of Holland.
Fervently then, and devoutly, the excellent Elder of Plymouth
Prayed for the hearth and the home, that were founded that day in
affection,
Speaking of life and of death, and imploring divine benedictions.
Lo! when the service was ended, a form appeared on the threshold,
Clad in armor of steel, a somber and sorrowful figure!
Why does the bridegroom start and stare at the strange apparition?
Why does the bride turn pale, and hide her face on his shoulder?
Is it a phantom of air—a bodiless spectral illusion?
Is it a ghost from the grave, that has come to forbid the betrothal?
Long had it stood there unseen, a guest uninvited, unwelcomed;
Over its clouded eyes there had passed at times an expression
Softening the gloom and revealing the warm heart hidden beneath them,
As when across the sky the driving rack of the rain-cloud
Grows for a moment thin, and betrays the sun by its brightness.
Once it had lifted its hand, and moved its lips, but was silent,
As if an iron will had mastered the fleeting intention.
But when were ended the troth and the prayer and the last benediction,
Into the room it strode, and the people beheld with amazement
Bodily there in his armor Miles Standish, the Captain of Plymouth!
Grasping the bridegroom’s hand, he said with emotion, “Forgive me!
I have been angry and hurt—too long have I cherished the feeling;
I have been cruel and hard, but now, thank God! it is ended.
Mine is the same hot blood that leaped in the veins of Hugh Standish,
Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for error.
Never so much as now was Miles Standish the friend of John Alden.”
Thereupon answered the bridegroom: “Let all be forgotten between us—
All save the dear old friendship, and that shall grow older and dearer!”
Then the Captain advanced, and, bowing, saluted Priscilla,
Gravely, and after the manner of old-fashioned gentry in England,
Something of camp and of court, of town and of country, commingled,
Wishing her joy of her wedding, and loudly lauding her husband.
Then he said with a smile: “I should have remembered the adage—
If you would be well served, you must serve yourself; and moreover,
No man can gather cherries in Kent at the season of Christmas!”
Great was the people’s amazement, and greater yet their rejoicing,
Thus to behold once more the sunburnt face of their Captain,
Whom they had mourned as dead; and they gathered and crowded about him,
Eager to see him and hear him, forgetful of bride and of bridegroom,
Questioning, answering, laughing, and each interrupting the other,
Till the good Captain declared, being quite overpowered and bewildered,
He had rather by far break into an Indian encampment,
Than come again to a wedding to which he had not been invited.
Meanwhile the bridegroom went forth and stood with the bride at the
doorway,
Breathing the perfumed air of that warm and beautiful morning.
Touched with autumnal tints, but lonely and sad in the sunshine,
Lay extended before them the land of toil and privation;
There were the graves of the dead, and the barren waste of the seashore,
There the familiar fields, the groves of pine, and the meadows;
But to their eyes transfigured, it seemed as the Garden of Eden,
Filled with the presence of God, whose voice was the sound of the ocean.
Soon was their vision disturbed by the noise and stir of departure,
Friends coming forth from the house, and impatient of longer delaying,
Each with his plan for the day, and the work that was left uncompleted.
Then from a stall near at hand, amid exclamations of wonder,
Alden the thoughtful, the careful, so happy, so proud of Priscilla,
Brought out his snow-white bull, obeying the hand of its master,
Led by a cord that was tied to an iron ring in its nostrils,
Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed for a saddle.
She should not walk, he said, through the dust and heat of the noon-day;
Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod along like a peasant.
Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the others,
Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the hand of her husband,
Gayly, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted her palfrey.
“Nothing is wanting now,” he said, with a smile, “but the distaff;
Then you would be in truth my queen, my beautiful Bertha!”
Onward the bridal procession now moved to their new habitation,
Happy husband and wife, and friends conversing together.
Pleasantly murmured the brook, as they crossed the ford in the forest,
Pleased with the image that passed, like a dream of love through its
bosom,
Tremulous, floating in air, o’er the depths of the azure abysses.
Down through the golden leaves the sun was pouring his splendors,
Gleaming on purple grapes, that, from branches above them suspended,
Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the pine and the fir-tree,
Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew in the valley of Eshcol.
Like a picture it seemed of the primitive pastoral ages,
Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Rebecca and Isaac,
Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always,
Love immortal and young in the endless succession of lovers.
So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the bridal procession.
NOTES AND QUESTIONS
For Biography, see page 80.
=Discussion.= 1. Read the history of the Pilgrims’ settlement
at Plymouth. 2. Describe the Plymouth of the first year of the
settlement. 3. How long had the Pilgrims been in their new home at
the time this story opens? 4. What tells you this? 5. Find lines
that tell how hard the first winter had been. 6. What tells you that
the Captain had read his Cæsar many times? 7. What principle of
conduct did he learn from Cæsar’s victories? 8. When did he entirely
disregard this principle? 9. What excuse did he give for not acting
upon it? 10. Read the words in which John Alden tells why he will
undertake the Captain’s errand. 11. What ideal of friendship had
he? 12. What do you think of Alden’s description of his friend’s
character? 13. Read the lines in which Priscilla shows her love of
truth and loyalty. 14. When does Miles Standish show himself most
noble? 15. Who is the real hero of this poem? 16. Commit to memory
lines which seem to you to express the moral truths and the high
ideals which the poem puts before us. 17. Make a brief outline of
the story. 18. Pronounce the following: athletic; sinews; memoirs;
taciturn; aerial; impious; capacious; stalwart; subtle; hearth.
=Phrases=
corselet of steel, 427, 8
mystical Arabic sentence, 427, 9
Spanish arcabucero, 428, 7
Flemish morasses, 428, 9
brazen howitzer, 428, 25
irresistible logic, 428, 27
belligerent Christians, 429, 27
Iberian village, 430, 23
grounding his musket, 431, 19
culling his phrases, 431, 27
taciturn stripling, 432, 23
mask his dismay, 432, 25
aerial cities, 433, 25
misty phantoms, 434, 8
swift retribution, 434, 14
ravenous spindle, 435, 6
embellish the theme, 437, 10
dilated with wonder, 437, 14
apocalyptical splendors, 439, 9
fields of dulse, 439, 16
mutable sands, 439, 21
importunate pleadings, 439, 24
rattle of cordage, 440, 11
bondage of error, 440, 18
congenial gloom, 441, 3
sacked and demolished, 441, 13
sound of sinister omen, 441, 22
hand-grenade, 441, 24
implacable hatred, 442, 7
hostile incursions, 442, 12
choleric Captain, 442, 22
sinuous way, 444, 7
serried billows, 444, 20
dangers that menaced, 445, 1
lose the tide, 446, 22
on the thwarts, 447, 2
divined his intention, 447, 8
wall adamantine, 447, 14
grasping a tiller, 448, 5
heaving the windlass round, 448, 14
yards were braced, 448, 15
irresistible impulse, 450, 3
subterranean rivers, 450, 15
a more ethereal level, 451; 3
sacred professions, 451, 16
urged by importunate zeal, 452, 24
withheld by remorseful misgivings, 453, 3
to be flouted, 453, 11
scabbards of wampum, 454, 11
trenchant knives, 454, 12
chaffer for peltries, 454, 15
sinister meaning, 455, 5
breaking the glebe, 457, 5
apprehension of danger, 457, 8
timber roughhewn, 457, 17
Alden’s allotment, 457, 24
led by illusions, 458, 5
subtle deceptions of fancy, 458, 5
into an ambush beguiled, 460, 7
trysting-place, 460, 23
sanction of earth, 461, 9
a bodiless spectral illusion, 461, 21
driving rack, 461, 26
atoning for error, 462, 10
azure abysses, 464, 9
AMERICAN SCENES AND LEGENDS
[Illustration]
MY VISIT TO NIAGARA
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Never did a pilgrim approach Niagara with deeper enthusiasm than mine.
I had lingered away from it, and wandered to other scenes, because my
treasury of anticipated enjoyments, comprising all the wonders of the
world, had nothing else so magnificent, and I was loath to exchange the
pleasures of hope for those of memory so soon. At length the day came.
The stage-coach, with a Frenchman and myself on the back seat, had
already left Lewiston, and in less than an hour would set us down in
Manchester. I began to listen for the roar of the cataract, and trembled
with a sensation like dread, as the moment drew nigh, when its voice
of ages must roll, for the first time, on my ear. The French gentleman
stretched himself from the window, and expressed loud admiration, while,
by a sudden impulse, I threw myself back and closed my eyes. When the
scene shut in, I was glad to think, that for me the whole burst of
Niagara was yet in futurity. We rolled on, and entered the village of
Manchester, bordering on the falls.
I am quite ashamed of myself here. Not that I ran like a madman to the
falls, and plunged into the thickest of the spray—never stopping to
breathe, till breathing was impossible; not that I committed this,
or any other suitable extravagance. On the contrary, I alighted with
perfect decency and composure, gave my cloak to the black waiter, pointed
out my baggage, and inquired, not the nearest way to the cataract, but
about the dinner-hour. The interval was spent in arranging my dress.
Within the last fifteen minutes, my mind had grown strangely benumbed,
and my spirits apathetic, with a slight depression, not decided enough
to be termed sadness. My enthusiasm was in a deathlike slumber. Without
aspiring to immortality, as he did, I could have imitated that English
traveler who turned back from the point where he first heard the thunder
of Niagara, after crossing the ocean to behold it. Many a Western trader,
by the by, has performed a similar act of heroism with more heroic
simplicity, deeming it no such wonderful feat to dine at the hotel and
resume his route to Buffalo or Lewiston, while the cataract was roaring
unseen.
Such has often been my apathy, when objects, long sought, and earnestly
desired, were placed within my reach. After dinner—at which an unwonted
and perverse epicurism detained me longer than usual—I lighted a cigar
and paced the piazza, minutely attentive to the aspect and business of
a very ordinary village. Finally, with reluctant step, and the feeling
of an intruder, I walked toward Goat Island. At the toll-house, there
were further excuses for delaying the inevitable moment. My signature
was required in a huge ledger, containing similar records innumerable,
many of which I read. The skin of a great sturgeon, and other fishes,
beasts, and reptiles; a collection of minerals, such as lie in heaps near
the falls; some Indian moccasins, and other trifles, made of deer-skin
and embroidered with beads; several newspapers, from Montreal, New York,
and Boston—all attracted me in turn. Out of a number of twisted sticks,
the manufacture of a Tuscarora Indian, I selected one of curled maple,
curiously convoluted, and adorned with the carved images of a snake and
a fish. Using this as my pilgrim’s staff, I crossed the bridge. Above
and below me were the rapids, a river of impetuous snow, with here and
there a dark rock amid its whiteness, resisting all the physical fury, as
any cold spirit did the moral influences of the scene. On reaching Goat
Island, which separates the two great segments of the falls, I chose the
right-hand path, and followed it to the edge of the American cascade.
There, while the falling sheet was yet invisible, I saw the vapor that
never vanishes, and the Eternal Rainbow of Niagara.
It was an afternoon of glorious sunshine, without a cloud, save those
of the cataracts. I gained an insulated rock, and beheld a broad sheet
of brilliant and unbroken foam, not shooting in a curved line from the
top of the precipice, but falling headlong down from height to depth. A
narrow stream diverged from the main branch, and hurried over the crag
by a channel of its own, leaving a little pine-clad island and a streak
of precipice between itself and the larger sheet. Below arose the mist,
on which was painted a dazzling sunbow with two concentric shadows—one,
almost as perfect as the original brightness; and the other, drawn
faintly round the broken edge of the cloud.
Still I had not half seen Niagara. Following the verge of the island, the
path led me to the Horseshoe, where the real, broad St. Lawrence, rushing
along on a level with its banks, pours its whole breadth over a concave
line of precipice, and thence pursues its course between lofty crags
toward Ontario. A sort of bridge, two or three feet wide, stretches out
along the edge of the descending sheet, and hangs upon the rising mist,
as if that were the foundation of the frail structure. Here I stationed
myself in the blast of wind, which the rushing river bore along with it.
The bridge was tremulous beneath me, and marked the tremor of the solid
earth. I looked along the whitening rapids, and endeavored to distinguish
a mass of water far above the falls, to follow it to their verge, and go
down with it, in fancy, to the abyss of clouds and storm. Casting my eyes
across the river, and every side, I took in the whole scene at a glance,
and tried to comprehend it in one vast idea. After an hour thus spent, I
left the bridge, and by a stair-case, winding almost interminably round
a post, descended to the base of the precipice. From that point, my path
lay over slippery stones, and among great fragments of the cliff, to the
edge of the cataract, where the wind at once enveloped me in spray, and
perhaps dashed the rainbow round me. Were my long desires fulfilled? And
had I seen Niagara?
Oh, that I had never heard of Niagara till I beheld it! Blessed were the
wanderers of old, who heard its deep roar, sounding through the woods,
as the summons to an unknown wonder, and approached its awful brink, in
all the freshness of native feeling. Had its own mysterious voice been
the first to warn me of its existence, then, indeed, I might have knelt
down and worshiped. But I had come thither, haunted with a vision of foam
and fury, and dizzy cliffs, and an ocean tumbling down out of the sky—a
scene, in short, which nature had too much good taste and calm simplicity
to realize. My mind had struggled to adapt these false conceptions to the
reality, and finding the effort vain, a wretched sense of disappointment
weighed me down. I climbed the precipice, and threw myself on the earth,
feeling that I was unworthy to look at the Great Falls, and careless
about beholding them again.
All that night, as there has been and will be for ages past and to come,
a rushing sound was heard, as if a great tempest were sweeping through
the air. It mingled with my dreams, and made them full of storm and
whirlwind. Whenever I awoke, and heard this dread sound in the air, and
the windows rattling as with a mighty blast, I could not rest again,
till looking forth, I saw how bright the stars were, and that every leaf
in the garden was motionless. Never was a summer night more calm to the
eye, nor a gale of autumn louder to the ear. The rushing sound proceeds
from the rapids, and the rattling of the casements is but an effect of
the vibration of the whole house, shaken by the jar of the cataract. The
noise of the rapids draws the attention from the true voice of Niagara,
which is a dull, muffled thunder, resounding between the cliffs. I spent
a wakeful hour at midnight, in distinguishing its reverberations, and
rejoiced to find that my former awe and enthusiasm were reviving.
Gradually, and after much contemplation, I came to know, by my own
feelings, that Niagara is indeed a wonder of the world, and not the less
wonderful, because time and thought must be employed in comprehending it.
Casting aside all preconceived notions, and preparation to be dire-struck
or delighted, the beholder must stand beside it in the simplicity of his
heart, suffering the mighty scene to work its own impression. Night
after night I dreamed of it, and was gladdened every morning by the
consciousness of a growing capacity to enjoy it. Yet I will not pretend
to the all-absorbing enthusiasm of some more fortunate spectators, nor
deny that very trifling causes would draw my eyes and thoughts from the
cataract.
The last day that I was to spend at Niagara, before my departure for the
Far West, I sat upon the Table Rock. This celebrated station did not now,
as of old, project fifty feet beyond the line of the precipice, but was
shattered by the fall of an immense fragment, which lay distant on the
shore below. Still, on the utmost verge of the rock, with my feet hanging
over it, I felt as if suspended in the open air. Never before had my mind
been in such perfect unison with the scene. There were intervals when I
was conscious of nothing but the great river, rolling calmly into the
abyss, rather descending than precipitating itself, and acquiring tenfold
majesty from its unhurried motion. It came like the march of Destiny. It
was not taken by surprise, but seemed to have anticipated, in all its
course through the broad lakes, that it must pour their collected waters
down this height. The perfect foam of the river, after its descent, and
the ever-varying shapes of mist, rising up, to become clouds in the
sky, would be the very picture of confusion, were it merely transient,
like the rage of a tempest. But when the beholder has stood awhile, and
perceives no lull in the storm, and considers that the vapor and the foam
are as everlasting as the rocks which produce them, all this turmoil
assumes a sort of calmness. It soothes, while it awes the mind.
Leaning over the cliff, I saw the guide conducting two adventurers behind
the falls. It was pleasant, from that high seat in the sunshine, to
observe them struggling against the eternal storm of the lower regions,
with heads bent down, now faltering, now pressing forward, and finally
swallowed up in their victory. After their disappearance, a blast rushed
out with an old hat, which it had swept from one of their heads. The
rock, to which they were directing their unseen course, is marked, at
a fearful distance on the exterior of the sheet, by a jet of foam. The
attempt to reach it appears both poetical and perilous to a looker-on,
but may be accomplished without much more difficulty or hazard than in
stemming a violent northeaster. In a few moments, forth came the children
of the mist. Dripping and breathless, they crept along the base of the
cliff, ascended to the guide’s cottage, and received, I presume, a
certificate of their achievement, with three verses of sublime poetry on
the back.
My contemplations were often interrupted by strangers who came down
from Forsyth’s to take their first view of the falls. A short, ruddy,
middle-aged gentleman, fresh from Old England, peeped over the rock,
and evinced his approbation by a broad grin. His spouse, a very robust
lady, afforded a sweet example of maternal solicitude, being so intent
on the safety of her little boy that she did not even glance at Niagara.
As for the child, he gave himself wholly to the enjoyment of a stick of
candy. Another traveler, a native American, and no rare character among
us, produced a volume of Captain Hall’s tour, and labored earnestly to
adjust Niagara to the captain’s description, departing, at last, without
one new idea or sensation of his own. The next comer was provided, not
with a printed book, but with a blank sheet of foolscap, from top to
bottom of which, by means of an ever-pointed pencil, the cataract was
made to thunder. In a little talk which we had together, he awarded
his approbation to the general view, but censured the position of Goat
Island, observing that it should have been thrown farther to the right,
so as to widen the American falls, and contract those of the Horseshoe.
Next appeared two traders of Michigan, who declared, that, upon the
whole, the sight was worth looking at; there certainly was an immense
water-power here; but that, after all, they would go twice as far to
see the noble stone-works of Lockport, where the Grand Canal is locked
down a descent of sixty feet. They were succeeded by a young fellow,
in a homespun cotton dress, with a staff in his hand, and a pack over
his shoulders. He advanced close to the edge of the rock, where his
attention, at first wavering among the different components of the scene,
finally became fixed in the angle of the Horseshoe falls, which is indeed
the central point of interest. His whole soul seemed to go forth and be
transported thither, till the staff slipped from his relaxed grasp, and
falling down—down—down—struck upon the fragment of the Table Rock.
In this manner I spent some hours, watching the varied impression made
by the cataract on those who disturbed me, and returning to unwearied
contemplation, when left alone. At length my time came to depart. There
is a grassy footpath through the woods, along the summit of the bank,
to a point whence a cause-way, hewn in the side of the precipice, goes
winding down to the Ferry, about half a mile below the Table Rock. The
sun was near setting, when I emerged from the shadow of the trees, and
began the descent. The indirectness of my downward road continually
changed the point of view, and showed me, in rich and repeated
succession, now, the whitening rapids and majestic leap of the main
river, which appeared more deeply massive as the light departed; now,
the lovelier picture, yet still sublime, of Goat Island, with its rocks
and grove, and the lesser falls, tumbling over the right bank of the St.
Lawrence, like a tributary stream; now, the long vista of the river, as
it eddied and whirled between the cliffs, to pass through Ontario toward
the sea, and everywhere to be wondered at, for this one unrivaled scene.
The golden sunshine tinged the sheet of the American cascade, and painted
on its heaving spray the broken semi-circle of a rainbow, heaven’s own
beauty crowning earth’s sublimity. My steps were slow, and I paused long
at every turn of the descent, as one lingers and pauses who discerns a
brighter and brightening excellence in what he must soon behold no more.
The solitude of the old wilderness now reigned over the whole vicinity of
the falls. My enjoyment became the more rapturous, because no poet shared
it, nor wretch devoid of poetry profaned it; but the spot so famous
through the world was all my own!
NOTES AND QUESTIONS
For Biography, see page 348.
=Discussion.= 1. Why was Hawthorne at first disappointed in Niagara?
2. How did he finally come to know that it is one of the world’s
wonders? 3. What feelings did Niagara produce in Hawthorne? 4. What
effect on the reader did he seek to produce? 5. What does Hawthorne
say is necessary in order to appreciate nature? 6. Account for
the fact that Niagara grew on Hawthorne. 7. What comments of other
observers does Hawthorne give? 8. What do you think determines the
kind of response an observer gives to a wonderful scene in nature,
such as Niagara? 9. Pronounce the following: loath; heroism; route;
unwonted; minutely; reptiles; tremor; abyss; tour; idea.
=Phrases=
anticipated enjoyments, 466, 3
suitable extravagance, 467, 1
perverse epicurism, 467, 18
impetuous snow, 467, 34
Eternal Rainbow, 468, 3
insulated rock, 468, 6
abyss of clouds, 468, 28
native feeling, 469, 4
tributary stream, 472, 21
eddied and whirled, 472, 22
unrivaled scene, 472, 23
brightening excellence, 472, 25
FROM MORN TILL NIGHT ON A FLORIDA RIVER
SIDNEY LANIER
For a perfect journey God gave us a perfect day. The little Ocklawaha
steamboat Marion had started on her voyage some hours before daylight.
She had taken on her passengers the night previous. By seven o’clock on
such a May morning as no words could describe we had made twenty-five
miles up the St. Johns. At this point the Ocklawaha flows into the St.
Johns, one hundred miles above Jacksonville.
Presently we abandoned the broad highway of the St. Johns, and turned off
to the right into the narrow lane of the Ocklawaha. This is the sweetest
water-lane in the world, a lane which runs for more than one hundred and
fifty miles of pure delight betwixt hedge-rows of oaks and cypresses and
palms and magnolias and mosses and vines; a lane clean to travel, for
there is never a speck of dust in it save the blue dust and gold dust
which the wind blows out of the flags and lilies.
As we advanced up the stream our wee craft seemed to emit her steam
in leisurely whiffs, as one puffs one’s cigar in a contemplative walk
through the forest. Dick, the pole-man, lay asleep on the guards, in
great peril of rolling into the river over the three inches between his
length and the edge; the people of the boat moved not, and spoke not;
the white crane, the curlew, the heron, the water-turkey, were scarcely
disturbed in their quiet avocations as we passed, and quickly succeeded
in persuading themselves after each momentary excitement of our gliding
by, that we were really no monster, but only some day-dream of a monster.
“Look at that snake in the water!” said a gentleman, as we sat on deck
with the engineer, just come up from his watch.
The engineer smiled. “Sir, it is a water-turkey,” he said, gently.
The water-turkey is the most preposterous bird within the range of
ornithology. He is not a bird; he is a neck with such subordinate rights,
members, belongings, and heirlooms as seem necessary to that end. He has
just enough stomach to arrange nourishment for his neck, just enough
wings to fly painfully along with his neck, and just big enough legs to
keep his neck from dragging on the ground; and his neck is light-colored,
while the rest of him is black. When he saw us he jumped up on a limb and
stared. Then suddenly he dropped into the water, sank like a leaden ball
out of sight, and made us think he was drowned. Presently the tip of his
beak appeared, then the length of his neck lay along the surface of the
water. In this position, with his body submerged, he shot out his neck,
drew it back, wriggled it, twisted it, twiddled it, and poked it spirally
into the east, the west, the north, and the south, round and round with a
violence and energy that made one think in the same breath of corkscrews
and of lightnings. But what nonsense! All that labor and perilous
contortion for a beggarly sprat or a couple of inches of water-snake.
Some twenty miles from the mouth of the Ocklawaha, at the right-hand edge
of the stream, is the handsomest residence in America. It belongs to a
certain alligator of my acquaintance, a very honest and worthy reptile
of good repute. A little cove of water, dark-green under the overhanging
leaves, placid and clear, curves round at the river edge into the flags
and lilies, with a curve just heart-breaking for its pure beauty. This
house of the alligator is divided into apartments, little bays which
are scalloped out by the lily-pads, according to the winding fancies
of their growth. My reptile, when he desires to sleep, has but to lie
down anywhere; he will find marvelous mosses for his mattress beneath
him; his sheets will be white lily-petals; and the green disks of the
lily-pads will straightway embroider themselves together above him for
his coverlet. He never quarrels with his cook, he is not the slave of a
kitchen, and his one house-maid—the stream—forever sweeps his chambers
clean. His conservatories there under the glass of that water are ever,
without labor, filled with the enchantments of under-water growths.
His parks and his pleasure-grounds are larger than any king’s. Upon my
saurian’s house the winds have no power, the rains are only a new delight
to him, and the snows he will never see. Regarding fire, as he does not
use it as a slave, so he does not fear it as a tyrant.
Thus all the elements are the friends of my alligator’s house. While he
sleeps he is being bathed. What glory to awake sweetened and freshened by
the sole, careless act of sleep!
Lastly, my saurian has unnumbered mansions, and can change his dwelling
as no human house-holder may; it is but a flip of his tail, and lo! he is
established in another place as good as the last, ready furnished to his
liking.
On and on up the river! We find it a river without banks. The swift, deep
current meanders between tall lines of trees; beyond these, on either
side, there is water also—a thousand shallow rivulets lapsing past the
bases of a multitude of trees.
Along the edges of the stream every tree-trunk, sapling, and stump is
wrapped about with a close-growing vine. The edges of the stream are also
defined by flowers and water-leaves. The tall blue flags, the lilies
sitting on their round lily-pads like white queens on green thrones, the
tiny stars and long ribbons of the water-grasses—all these border the
river in an infinite variety of adornment.
And now, after this day of glory, came a night of glory. Deep down in
these shaded lanes it was dark indeed as the night drew on. The stream
which had been all day a girdle of beauty, blue or green, now became a
black band of mystery.
But presently a brilliant flame flares out overhead: They have lighted
the pine-knots on top of the pilot-house. The fire advances up these dark
windings like a brilliant god.
The startled birds suddenly flutter into the light and after an instant
of illuminated flight melt into the darkness. From the perfect silence of
these short flights one derives a certain sense of awe.
Now there is a mighty crack and crash: limbs and leaves scrape and scrub
along the deck; a little bell tinkles; we stop. In turning a short curve,
the boat has run her nose smack into the right bank, and a projecting
stump has thrust itself sheer through the starboard side. Out, Dick! Out,
Henry! Dick and Henry shuffle forward to the bow, thrust forth their long
white pole against a tree-trunk, strain and push and bend to the deck as
if they were salaaming the god of night and adversity. Our bow slowly
rounds into the stream, the wheel turns and we puff quietly along.
And now it is bed-time. Let me tell you how to sleep on an Ocklawaha
steamer in May. With a small bribe persuade Jim, the steward, to take the
mattress out of your berth and lay it slanting just along the railing
that encloses the lower part of the deck in front and to the left of
the pilot-house. Lie flat on your back down on the mattress, draw your
blanket over you, put your cap on your head, on account of the night air,
fold your arms, say some little prayer or other, and fall asleep with a
star looking right down on your eye. When you wake in the morning you
will feel as new as Adam.
NOTES AND QUESTIONS
=Biography.= Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) was a native of Georgia. When
a mere lad, just out of college, he entered the Confederate army
and faithfully devoted the most precious years of his life to that
service. While in a military prison he contracted the dread “White
Plague,” and during his few remaining years he struggled constantly
with disease and poverty. He was a talented musician and often found
it necessary to supplement the earnings of his pen by playing in an
orchestra. His thorough knowledge and fine sense of music also appear
in his masterly treatise on the “Science of English Verse.” During
his last years he held a lectureship on English Literature in Johns
Hopkins University, at Baltimore. He has often been compared with Poe
in the exquisite melody of his verse, while in unaffected simplicity
and in truthfulness to nature he is not surpassed by Bryant or
Whittier. His prose as well as his poetry breathes the very spirit of
his sunny southland. In the “Song of the Chattahoochee”, “The Marshes
of Glynn,” and “On a Florida River,” one scents the balsam of the
Georgia pines among which he lived, and the odor of magnolia groves,
jessamine, and wild honey-suckle.
=Discussion.= 1. From this selection what do you think of the
author’s power of description? 2. Mention instances in which he makes
use of humor to add to his descriptive power. 3. Quote his words
describing the Ocklawaha. 4. What does the author mean by saying,
“We find it a river without banks”? 5. In your own words, give a
description of the alligator’s home. 6. Make a list of things Lanier
saw on this trip that he would not see on a trip down a river in
New England. 7. What gives melody to this piece of prose? 8. What
comparison do you find in lines 31 and 32, page 475? 9. Point out
some examples of alliteration; for what purpose does the author use
alliteration? 10. Pronounce the following: palms; leisurely; infinite.
=Phrases=
quiet avocations, 474, 5
day-dream of a monster, 474, 8
subordinate rights, 474, 15
perilous contortion, 474, 29
reptile of good repute, 474, 34
infinite variety, 475, 32
girdle of beauty, 475, 36
band of mystery, 475, 37
brilliant flame flares, 476, 1
sense of awe, 476, 6
I SIGH FOR THE LAND OF THE CYPRESS AND PINE
SAMUEL HENRY DICKSON
I sigh for the land of the cypress and pine;
Where the jessamine blooms, and the gay woodbine;
Where the moss droops low from the green oak tree—
Oh, that sun-bright land is the land for me!
The snowy flower of the orange there
Sheds its sweet fragrance through the air;
And the Indian rose delights to twine
Its branches with the laughing vine.
There the deer leaps light through the open glade,
Or hides him far in the forest shade,
When the woods resound in the dewy morn
With the clang of the merry hunter’s horn.
There the humming-bird, of rainbow plume,
Hangs over the scarlet creeper’s bloom;
While ’midst the leaves his varying dyes
Sparkle like half-seen fairy eyes.
There the echoes ring through the livelong day
With the mock-bird’s changeful roundelay;
And at night, when the scene is calm and still,
With the moan of the plaintive whip-poor-will.
Oh! I sigh for the land of the cypress and pine,
Of the laurel, the rose, and the gay woodbine,
Where the long, gray moss decks the rugged oak tree,—
That sun-bright land is the land for me.
NOTES AND QUESTIONS
=Biography.= Samuel Henry Dickson (1798-1872) was born in
Charleston, South Carolina. He was graduated at Yale College in
1814, and afterward took a course in medicine at the University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Dickson was professor of medicine successively
at the medical school at Charleston, at the University of the City
of New York, and at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. He
wrote several books on medicine. His love for his native sun-bright
southland is beautifully expressed, in this poem.
=Discussion.= 1. What part of the country does the poet mean when he
refers to the “land of Cyprus and pine”? 2. Mention the beautiful
things named in the first stanza which characterize this land. 3.
Have you ever seen the moss “which droops low from the green oak
tree”? Where? 4. What birds does the poet mention in this selection?
5. Do you think these birds would be found in the woods of Maine
or Wisconsin? 6. Note the changes of the time of day throughout
the poem. In which stanza is the “morn” spoken of? The “livelong
day”? The night? 7. Have you ever heard “the moan of the plaintive
whip-poor-will”? 8. Do you think the poet was right in calling its
note a “moan”? Do you know how this bird got its name? 9. Does the
poet convince you that this is a land worth sighing for?
THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW
WASHINGTON IRVING
A pleasing land of drowsy head it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky.
—CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.
THE VALLEY AND ITS SUPERSTITIONS