This eBook was produced by David Widger NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER CONTENTS: THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS To H P S THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS THE WISHING BRIDGE HOW THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER ST GREGORY'S GUEST CONTENTS BIRCHBROOK MILL THE TWO ELIZABETHS REQUITAL THE HOMESTEAD HOW THE ROBIN CAME BANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS THE BROWN DWARF OF RUGEN THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS. The volume in which "The Bay of Seven Islands" was published was dedicated to the late Edwin Percy Whipple, to whom more than to any other person I was indebted for public recognition as one worthy of a place in American literature, at a time when it required a great degree of courage to urge such a claim for a pro-scribed abolitionist. Although younger than I, he had gained the reputation of a brilliant essayist, and was regarded as the highest American authority in criticism. His wit and wisdom enlivened a small literary circle of young men including Thomas Starr King, the eloquent preacher, and Daniel N. Haskell of the Daily Transcript, who gathered about our common friend dames T. Fields at the Old Corner Bookstore. The poem which gave title to the volume I inscribed to my friend and neighbor Harriet Prescott Spofford, whose poems have lent a new interest to our beautiful river-valley. FROM the green Amesbury hill which bears the name Of that half mythic ancestor of mine Who trod its slopes two hundred years ago, Down the long valley of the Merrimac, Midway between me and the river's mouth, I see thy home, set like an eagle's nest Among Deer Island's immemorial pines, Crowning the crag on which the sunset breaks Its last red arrow. Many a tale and song, Which thou bast told or sung, I call to mind, Softening with silvery mist the woods and hills, The out-thrust headlands and inreaching bays Of our northeastern coast-line, trending where The Gulf, midsummer, feels the chill blockade Of icebergs stranded at its northern gate. To thee the echoes of the Island Sound Answer not vainly, nor in vain the moan Of the South Breaker prophesying storm. And thou hast listened, like myself, to men Sea-periled oft where Anticosti lies Like a fell spider in its web of fog, Or where the Grand Bank shallows with the wrecks Of sunken fishers, and to whom strange isles And frost-rimmed bays and trading stations seem Familiar as Great Neck and Kettle Cove, Nubble and Boon, the common names of home. So let me offer thee this lay of mine, Simple and homely, lacking much thy play Of color and of fancy. If its theme And treatment seem to thee befitting youth Rather than age, let this be my excuse It has beguiled some heavy hours and called Some pleasant memories up; and, better still, Occasion lent me for a kindly word To one who is my neighbor and my friend. 1883. . . . . . . . . . .