The Courtship of Miles Standish

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 marvellous words and achievements of Julius Caesar. / After a while he exclaimed, as he smote with his hand, palm downwards, / Heavily on the page: "A wonderful man was this Caesar! / 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 skilful! " / 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 Caesar! / 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, / Put 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 Mayflower, / 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: / "T is 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."