Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling,
Or an occasional sigh from the laboring heart of the Captain,
Reading the marvelous words and achievements of Julius Cæsar.
After a while he exclaimed, as he smote with his hand, palm downwards, 90
Heavily on the page: “A wonderful man was this Cæsar!
You are a writer, and I am a fighter, but here is a fellow
Who could both write and fight, and in both was equally skillful!”
Straightway answered and spake John Alden, the comely, the youthful:
“Yes, he was equally skilled, as you say, with his pen and his weapons. 95
Somewhere have I read, but where I forget, he could dictate