‘There stands old Billy Johnson, that fought at Lundy’s Lane!’
And when the fight is hottest, before the traitors fly,
When shell and ball are screeching and bursting in the sky,
If any shot should hit me, and lay me on my face,
My soul would go to Washington’s, and not to Arnold’s place!”
In June, the necessity of rest, and the desire to obtain it in such a way as to get pleasure and advantage from his release, influenced him to take a trip to his wife’s old home, and to spend a month at the country residence of a friend which was situated on slopes of the Thuringian Forest, not far from Weimar and Gotha. It was a lovely spot, and a pretty cottage, and about him were numberless reminders of Schiller and Goethe, with whose names he was so creditably to connect his own. Whether he gained the rest he needed or not, is a question still undecided. Certainly he did not gain as much as he would, had he left Goethe’s “Faust,” and his own new volume of poems behind him, and chafed much less under his great suspense concerning the results of the American War. He ran up the American flag to the ridge-pole of his cottage, and walked about uneasily, awaiting news from home. He talked of the war with his neighbors and visitors, wrote about it to whomsoever of his friends he thought might not understand the merits of the contest, and, at last, about the 1st of August, hastily broke up his cosy housekeeping, and returned to America.
CEDARCROFT, KENNETT SQUARE, PA.
When he again opened the doors of his dwelling at Kennett, which he had given the poetical name of “Cedarcroft,” it was to welcome to his fireside all who loved their country. But, as he afterwards proudly declared, no traitor ever crossed its threshold. Many distinguished men visited him, including members of Congress, and of the President’s Cabinet.
