Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

Introductory to New England

Maine

By Isaac McLellan (1806–1899)

FAR in the sunset’s mellow glory,

Far in the daybreak’s pearly bloom,

Fringed by ocean’s foamy surges,

Belted in by woods of gloom,

Stretch thy soft, luxuriant borders,

Smile thy shores, in hill and plain,

Flower-enamelled, ocean-girdled,

Green bright shores of Maine.

Rivers of surpassing beauty

From thy hemlock woodlands flow,—

Androscoggin and Penobscot,

Saco, chilled by northern snow;

These from many a lowly valley

Thick by pine-trees shadowed o’er,

Sparkling from their ice-cold tributes

To the surges of thy shore.

Bays resplendent as the heaven,

Starred and gemmed by thousand isles,

Gird thee,—Casco with its islets,

Quoddy with its dimpled smiles;

O’er them swift the fisher’s shallop

And tall ships their wings expand,

While the smoke-flag of the steamer

Flaunteth out its cloudy streamer,

Bound unto a foreign strand.

Bright from many a rocky headland,

Fringed by sands that shine like gold,

Gleams the lighthouse white and lonely,

Grim as some baronial hold.

Bright by many an ocean valley

Shaded hut and village shine;

Roof and steeple, weather-beaten,

Stained by ocean’s breath of brine.