The Courtship of Miles Standish

Meanwhile the stalwart Miles Standish was marching steadily northward, / Winding through forest and swamp, and along the trend of the sea-shore, / 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! 't was 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? / 'T was 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.