FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 105 



myself in a cabin within sight of the surf, 

 and, luxuriating upon this delicious diet, 

 loafing and inviting my soul on the beach 

 throughout the long summer days ? As I 

 think of it, memory brings before me the 

 stretch of yellow grey shore with the rip 

 pling edge of the water gently lapping the 

 sand at my feet as the tide turns, with here 

 and there protruding the gaunt ribs of a 

 wrecked coaster, covered with barnacles, 

 and with waving streamers of seaweed. 



Oh, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair ? 

 A tress o golden hair, 

 O drowned maiden s hair, 

 Above the nets at sea ? 



Behind me is the crumbling bank with its 

 ragged edge of roots and overhanging grass, 

 and with the pitch-pines and scrub-oaks 

 clinging for dear life to the top of the bluff, 

 while away, away in front stretch the shal 

 low waters toward Martha s Vineyard and 

 Nantucket, which perchance are just lifted 

 by the mirage upon the edge of the distant 

 horizon. 



And just here a blundering, crooked 

 branch of witch-hazel stretches across the 

 path, and we are again on Kattlesnake 

 Mountain, in the aisles of the merry green- 



