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Old Town By The Sea, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Project Gutenberg's An Old Town By The Sea, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: An Old Town By The Sea
Author: Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Release Date: March 21, 2006 [EBook #1861]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** 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