"No! You Were Angry with Me, for Speaking so Frankly and Freely". .....Facing 52 A Signal and Challenge of Warfare.. 55 Many a Mile They Marched. 58 As They Went Through the Fields in the Blessing and ...Facing 60 The Master Cramming Letters and Parcels Into His 65 In Autumn the Ships of the Merchants Came with .....Facing 68 "I Was Not Angry with You”. 73 She Standing Graceful, Erect, and Winding the Thread Lay Extended Before Them, the Land of Toil and Privation ...Facing 92 The Spinning Wheel... 95 Rushed Together at Last..... 99 Down Through the Golden Leaves the Sunshine Was ....Facing 100 Taking Each Other for Husband and Wife in the Magistrate's Presence... 103 So Through the Plymouth Woods Passed Onward the 107 Like a Picture It Seemed of the Primitive, Pastoral Ages .......Facing 108 INTRODUCTION Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807, in a barn-like wooden house that is still standing. He passed his early life in the fine brick mansion in another part of the city that is known as the Longfellow House. On his mother's side he was descended from Elder William Brewster and Captain John Alden. He was thus favored by his ancestry to write this poem, descriptive of the early Pilgrim people. Longfellow entered Bowdoin College at fourteen, and showed his ability for writing by contributing to the periodicals even at that early age. By the time he was twenty-six he had made a positive place in literature. He was Professor at Bowdoin and Harvard Colleges. He made four visits to Europe. He was married to Miss Mary Potter in 1831 and to Miss Fanny Appleton in 1843. There were two sons and three daughters born to the second marriage. Longfellow died March 24, 1882, and was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass. A Memorial Service was held at Appleton Chapel Harvard University, and a great throng of people were present. The entire country had been honoring Longfellow on his seventy-fifth birthday just before his death, and school children everywhere had been reciting his poems. A great wave of sorrow passed over the land when Longfellow died, as everybody felt that the poet who spoke out of the depths of his great heart to the lives and hearts of others had gone from them. The citizens of Portland and Cambridge still vie with each other in honoring the memory of the sweet singer of Old New England. The Longfellow was the author of many poems. first of these were published in 1826. Many translations and works edited by him appeared between the years 1826-1830. "Evangeline" was published in 1847, "Hiawatha" in 1855, and "The Courtship of Miles Standish" in 1858. These are probably the three best known and most beloved poems in our language. They are read by children in the kindergarten, in both the Sunday and day schools, and by the aged grandfathers and grandmothers around the fireside. We are greatly indebted to Mr. Longfellow for having taken the somewhat dry and uninteresting chronicles of the early Pilgrim people and touching them with the poetic light and tender romance. He has taken some traditions which have come down to us from the early days of the Pilgrim settlement and in "The Courtship of Miles Standish" has depicted for us the scenes and life of the old colony. This poem is just the reverse of "Evangeline" and "Hiawatha." In the two other poems the climax approaches a tragedy, while in "Miles Standish" each climax approaches a comedy. In the two longer poems the pathos and sadness increase as the poem proceeds, but in "Miles Standish" the heart grows lighter and the scene grows brighter, until it closes in the satisfying pictures of the delightful adjustments of all misunderstandings and the marriage of the lovers midst most ideal surroundings. The story of the poem is built around the maxim of Miles Standish, "If you want a thing to be well done you must do it yourself and not leave it to others." Having lost his wife, Rose Standish, during the first winter of their stay in the Colony, Miles Standish falls in love with the sweet-faced maiden Priscilla, of Huguenot descent, who is left an orphan and alone by the |