Where green Saugonnet meets the sea
With rocks that hold the waves aloof,
While here the Red Man wandered free
The Pilgrim lover reared his roof,
And wed, with vows for life or death,
Priscilla’s child, Elizabeth.
O’er younger heaving deep that breaks
In thunder on the rust-red rocks,
She saw the white foam’s drifted flakes
Fly with the sea-gulls’ snowy flocks
And heard the geese whose dismal honks
Proclaimed the realm of Arva Sawocks. [?]
Two hundred years in sturdy pride
This home of honest worth has stood;
It walks the wintry storms defied,
That only graced the naked wood
With things of harmonious gray,
Where summer sunbeams love to play.
Enter; the sculptured beams invite;
The charm of earliest love survives;
Some old, rust-eaten relic might
Evoke a glimpse of vanished lives;
But, would you pass it, bow before
The threshold of that inner door!
An ancient peer of lordly oaks,
Behold the massive “summer-trees”
That frankly shows the broad-axe strokes
Like waves upon a gentle sea.
All round us the low-studded room
Is fragrant with perpetual bloom!
Wide yawn the ingle’s granite jaws,
Its creaking tongue the sooty crane;
Its huge throat roars in windy flames
And hisses at the intruding rain;
The hollowed hearth-stone marks the beat
Of Betty Alden’s nimble feet.
Against he joint a polished scarf
Worn deep into the granite’s life
Tells where her busy hand made warp
For years, her generous carving-knife:
How many a feast, with song and laugh,
Leaves there its silent epitaph!
The attic’s naked rafters lean
Unbending from the narrow eaves;
There reel and warping-bars were seen
Where now the spider only weaves:
For whirring wheel and throbbing loom
No longer cheer this silent room.
First daughter of the Pilgrim flock, -
Despite her chronic years – we brood
The Baby Girl of Plymouth Rock,
Priscilla’s crown of Motherhood:
In granite, carved above her grave.
This tributary Verse we gave:
“A Bud from Plymouth’s Mayflower sprung,
Transplanted here to live and bloom,
Her memory, ever sweet and young,
The Centuries guard within this tomb!”
Long as her Home looks on the sea
Unfading shall that memory be!
Pabodie House