FROM the green Amesbury hill which bears the name Of that half mythic ancestor of mine Who trod its slopes two hundred years ago, Down the long valley of the Merrimac,
Midway between me and the river's mouth, I see thy home, set like an eagle's nest Among Deer Island's immemorial pines, Crowning the crag on which the sunset breaks
Its last red arrow. Many a tale and song, Which thou bast told or sung, I call to mind, Softening with silvery mist the woods and hills, The out-thrust headlands and inreaching bays
Of our northeastern coast-line, trending where The Gulf, midsummer, feels the chill blockade Of icebergs stranded at its northern gate. To thee the echoes of the Island Sound
Answer not vainly, nor in vain the moan Of the South Breaker prophesying storm. And thou hast listened, like myself, to men Sea-periled oft where Anticosti lies
Like a fell spider in its web of fog, Or where the Grand Bank shallows with the wrecks Of sunken fishers, and to whom strange isles And frost-rimmed bays and trading stations seem
Familiar as Great Neck and Kettle Cove, Nubble and Boon, the common names of home. So let me offer thee this lay of mine, Simple and homely, lacking much thy play
Of color and of fancy. If its theme And treatment seem to thee befitting youth Rather than age, let this be my excuse It has beguiled some heavy hours and called
Some pleasant memories up; and, better still, Occasion lent me for a kindly word To one who is my neighbor and my friend.
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