apparel of homespun
  Beautiful with her beauty, and rich with the wealth of her being! 
  Over him rushed, like a wind that is keen and cold and relentless,
  Thoughts of what might have been, and the weight and woe
      of his errand; 240
  All the dreams that had faded, and all the hopes that had vanished,
  All his life henceforth a dreary and tenantless mansion,
  Haunted by vain regrets, and pallid, sorrowful faces. 
  Still he said to himself, and almost fiercely he said it,
  “Let not him that putteth his hand to the plough look backwards;[35] 245
  Though the ploughshare cut through the flowers of life to
      its fountains,
  Though it pass o’er the graves of the dead and the hearths
      of the living,
  It is the will of the Lord, and his mercy endureth forever!”

  So he entered the house; and the hum of the wheel and the singing
  Suddenly ceased; for Priscilla, aroused by his step
      on the threshold, 250
  Rose as he entered and gave him her hand, in signal of welcome,
  Saying, “I knew it was you, when I heard your step in the passage;
  For I was thinking of you, as I sat there singing and spinning.” 
  Awkward and dumb with delight, that a thought of him had been mingled
  Thus in the sacred psalm, that came from the heart of the maiden, 255
  Silent before her he stood, and gave her the flowers for an answer,
  Finding no words for his thought.  He remembered that day
      in the winter,
  After the first great snow, when he broke a path from the village,

  Reeling and plunging along through the drifts that encumbered
      the doorway,
  Stamping the snow from his feet as he entered the house,
      and Priscilla 260
  Laughed at his snowy locks, and gave him a seat by the fireside,
  Grateful and pleased to know he had thought of her in the snow-storm. 
  Had he but spoken then! perhaps not in vain had he spoken;
  Now it was all too late; the golden moment had vanished! 
  So he stood there abashed, and gave her the flowers for an answer. 265

  Then they sat down and talked of the birds and the beautiful
      Spring-time;
  Talked of their friends at home, and the Mayflower that sailed
      on the morrow. 
  “I have been thinking all day,” said gently the Puritan maiden,
  “Dreaming all night, and thinking all day, of the hedge-rows
      of England,—­
  They are in blossom now, and the country is all like a garden; 270
  Thinking of lanes and fields, and the song of the lark and the linnet,
  Seeing the village street, and familiar faces of neighbors
  Going about as of old, and stopping to gossip together,
  And, at the end of the street, the village