Project Gutenberg's An Old Town By The Sea, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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Title: An Old Town By The Sea

Author: Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Release Date: March 21, 2006 [EBook #1861]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OLD TOWN BY THE SEA ***

Produced by Susan L. Farley and David Widger

AN OLD TOWN BY THE SEA

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

PISCATAQUA RIVER

Thou singest by the gleaming isles,
By woods, and fields of corn,
Thou singest, and the sunlight smiles
Upon my birthday morn.

But I within a city, I,
So full of vague unrest,
Would almost give my life to lie
An hour upon upon thy breast.

To let the wherry listless go,
And, wrapt in dreamy joy,
Dip, and surge idly to and fro,
Like the red harbor-buoy;

To sit in happy indolence,
To rest upon the oars,
And catch the heavy earthy scents
That blow from summer shores;

To see the rounded sun go down,
And with its parting fires
Light up the windows of the town
And burn the tapering spires;

And then to hear the muffled tolls
From steeples slim and white,
And watch, among the Isles of Shoals,
The Beacon's orange light.

O River! flowing to the main
Through woods, and fields of corn,
Hear thou my longing and my pain
This sunny birthday morn;

And take this song which fancy shapes
To music like thine own,
And sing it to the cliffs and capes
And crags where I am known!

CONTENTS

I. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH
II. ALONG THE WATER SIDE
III. A STROLL ABOUT TOWN
IV. A STROLL ABOUT TOWN (continued)
V. OLD STRAWBERRY BANK
VI. SOME OLD PORTSMOUTH PROFILES
VII. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES

INDEX OF NAMES

AN OLD TOWN BY THE SEA

I. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH

I CALL it an old town, but it is only relatively old. When one reflects
on the countless centuries that have gone to the for-mation of this
crust of earth on which we temporarily move, the most ancient cities on
its surface seem merely things of the week before la