set,
Though prodigal in wandering,
Arose; and with a tingled cheek,
Like some late wild duck on the wing,
I started down the Chesapeake.
The morning sunlight, silvery calm,
From basking shores of woodland broke,
And capes and inlets breathing balm,
And lovely islands clothed in palm,
Closed round the sound of Pocomoke.

The pungy boats at anchor swing,
The long canoes were oystering,
And moving barges played the seine
Along the beaches of Tangiers;
I heard the British drums again
As in their predatory years,
When Kedge's Straits the Tories swept,
And Ross's camp-fires hid in smoke.
They plundered all the coasts except
The camp the Island Parson kept
For praying men of Pocomoke.

And when we thread in quaint intrigue
Onancock Creek and Pungoteague,
The world and wars behind us stop.
On God's frontiers we seem to be
As at Rehoboth wharf we drop,
And see the Kirk of Mackemie:
The first he was to teach the creed
The rugged Scotch will ne'er revoke;
His slaves he made to work and read,
Nor powers Episcopal to heed,
That held the glebes on Pocomoke.

But quiet nooks like these unman
The grim predestinarian,
Whose soul expands to mountain views;
And Wesley's tenets, like a tide,
These level shores with love suffuse,
Where'er his patient preachers ride.
The landscape quivered with the swells
And felt the steamer's paddle stroke,
That tossed the hollow gum-tree shells,
As if some puffing craft of hell's
The fisher chased in Pocomoke.

Anon the river spreads to coves,
And in the tides grow giant groves.
The water shines like ebony,
And odors resinous ascend
From many an old balsamic tree,
Whose roots the terrapin befriend;
The great ball cypress, fringed with beard,
Presides above the water oak,
As doth its shingles, well revered,
O'er many a happy home endeared
To thousands far from Pocomoke.

And solemn hemlocks drink the dew,
Like that old Socrates they slew;
The piny forests moan and moan,
And in the marshy splutter docks,
As if they grazed on sky alone,
Rove airily the herds of ox.
Then, like a narrow strait of light,
The banks draw close, the long trees yoke,
And strong old manses on the height