文档介绍：An Old Town By The Sea
An Old Town By The Sea
by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
1
An Old Town By The Sea
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!
2
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 last. It was only the other
day, then--that is to say, in the month of June, 1603--that one Martin Pring,
in the ship Speedwell, an enormous ship of nearly fifty tons burden, from
Bristol, England, sailed up the Piscataqua River. The Speedwell,
numbering thirty men, officers and crew, had for consort the Discoverer,
of twenty-six tons and thirteen men. After following the windings of "the
brave river" for twelve miles or more, the two vessels turned back and put
to sea again, having failed in the chief object of the expedition, which was
to obtain a ca