| |
| 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 loadstone, | |
| Whatsoever it touches, by subtile laws of its nature, | |
| Lo! as he turned to depart, Priscilla was standing beside him. | 5 |
| |
| “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 | 10 |
| 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. | 15 |
| 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. | 20 |
| 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, | 25 |
| Seeing how badly I managed the matter I had in my keeping.” | |
| “No!” interrupted the maiden, with answer prompt and decisive; | |
| “No; you were 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, | 30 |
| 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.” | 35 |
| 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!” | 40 |
| “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, | 45 |
| 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 | 50 |
| 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, | 55 |
| 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. | 60 |
| “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 | 65 |
| 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, | 70 |
| 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 Mayflower, | |
| Distant, but still in sight, and sinking below the horizon, | 75 |
| 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, | 80 |
| 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. | 85 |
| 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 he had suffered,— | |
| How he had even determined to sail that day in the Mayflower, | |
| And had remained for her sake, on hearing the dangers that threatened,— | 90 |
| 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; | 95 |
| 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. | |
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