The Courtship of Miles Standish

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 rough-hewn 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 steer, 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 pennyroyal.