Tales of the Chesapeake

Tales of the Chesapeake

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tales of the Chesapeake, by George
Alfred Townsend
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: Tales of the Chesapeake
Author: George Alfred Townsend

Release Date: April 5, 2006 [eBook #18126]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF
THE CHESAPEAKE***
E-text prepared by Bethanne M. Simms, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net/)

TALES OF THE CHESAPEAKE

by
GEO. ALFRED TOWNSEND
"GATH."

A fruity smell is in the school-house lane; The clover bees are sick with
evening heats; A few old houses from the window-pane Fling back the
flame of sunset, and there beats The throb of oars from basking oyster
fleets, And clangorous music of the oyster tongs Plunged down in deep
bivalvulous retreats, And sound of seine drawn home with negro songs.

New York: American News Company, 39 and 41 Chambers Street.
1880. Copyright, 1880, Geo. Alfred Townsend.

TO MY FATHER,
REV. STEPHEN TOWNSEND, M.D., PH.D.,
WHOSE ANCESTORS EXPLORED THE CHESAPEAKE BAY IN
1623, AND WERE SETTLED ON THE POCOMOKE RIVER
ALMOST TWO HUNDRED YEARS, NEAR HIS BIRTHPLACE;
WITH
THE AFFECTION OF
HIS ONLY SURVIVING SON.

Of the following pieces, two, "Kidnapped," and "Dominion over the
Fish," have been published in Chambers's Journal, London. The poem
"Herman of Bohemia Manor" is new. All the compositions illustrate the
same general locality.

INTRODUCTION.
MOTHERNOOK.
THE EASTERN SHORE OF MARYLAND.
One day, worn out with head and pen, And the debate of public men, I
said aloud, "Oh! if there were Some place to make me young awhile, I
would go there, I would go there, And if it were a many a mile!" Then
something cried--perhaps my map, That not in vain I oft invoke-- "Go
seek again your mother's lap, The dear old soil that gave you sap, And
see the land of Pocomoke!"
A sense of shame that never yet My foot on that old shore was 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 Stand overhead, as to invite To good
old cheer on Pocomoke.
And cunning baskets midstream lie To trap the perch that gambol by;
In coves of creek the saw-mills sing, And trim the spar and hew the
mast; And the gaunt loons dart on the wing, To see the steamer
looming past. Now timber shores and massive piles Repel our hull with