Identifier: courtshipofmile00long (find matches)
Title: The courtship of Miles Standish
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807-1882 Christy, Howard Chandler, 1873-1952, ill
Subjects: Standish, Myles, 1584?-1656
Publisher: Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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and spake out, forgetful perhaps of decorum?Certainly you can forgive me for speaking so frankly, for sayingWhat 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 pebbleDrops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.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.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 102
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■> PRISC ILLA I was not angry with you, with myself alone I was angry,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 womanLong to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless,Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence.Hence is the inner life of so many suffering womenSunless and silent and deep, like subterranean riversRunning through caverns of darkness, unheard, unseen, and unfruitful.Chafing their channels of stone, with endless and profitless murmurs.Thereupon answered John Alden, the young man, the lover of women: Heaven forbid it, Priscilla; and truly they seem to me alwaysMore 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

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