Part 7: The Courtship of Miles Standish
The Courtship of Miles Standish—Part 7
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
VII. THE MARCH OF MILES STANDISH.[44]
Meanwhile the stalwart Miles Standish was marching steadily northward, 725
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; 730
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!
Image from page 116 of
The Courtship of Miles Standish, illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1903). From the Internet Archive Book Images on Flickr.com
“I alone am to blame,” he muttered, “for mine was the folly. 735
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 740
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 745
Pitched on the edge of a meadow, between the sea and the forest;
Women at work by the tents, and 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 breastplate and sabre and musket, 750
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;[45] 755
One was Pecksuot named, and the other was called Wattawamat.
Round their necks were suspended their knives in scabbards of wampum,[46]
Two-edged, trenchant knives, with points as sharp as a needle.
Other arms had they none, for they were running and crafty.
“Welcome, English!” they said,—these words they had learned from the traders 760
Touching at times on the coast, to barter, and chaffer for peltries.[47]
Then in their native tongue they began to parley with Standish,
Through his guide and interpreter, Hoborook, 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, 765
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: 770
“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, 775
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, 780
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 his sheath, and plunging it back, as he muttered,
“By and by it shall see; it shall eat; ah, ha! but shall speak not! 785
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 bowstrings, 790
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, 795
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, 800
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, 805
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, 810
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!” 815
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. 820
Only Priscilla averted her face from this spectre 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.
***Notes***
[44] Jump up ↑ The account of the march of Miles Standish is based on the New England chronicles.
[45] Jump up ↑ See I Samuel, xvii, and Numbers, xxi.
[46] Jump up ↑ wampum. Beads made of shells, and used by the Indians both for money and for ornament.
[47] Jump up ↑ to chaffer for peltries. To trade in skins or furs.
This text comes from Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School (Toronto: Copp, Clark Co., 1912), annotated by Dr. O. J. Stevenson, Professor of English, Ontario Agricultural College.
Part 6 | Table of Contents | Part 8
***
When will you read Longfellow in Excellence in Literature?
E3.2 The Courtship of Miles Standish and other selected poetry (see the module for specific assignment)
