PLYMOUTH MAYFLOWERS 145 



"My soul to-day is far away, 

 Sailing the blue Vesuvian bay." 



At Naples indeed could be no softer, fairer skies 

 than this June day of late April brought to Ply- 

 mouth Bay and spread over the waters that nestled 

 within the curve of that splendid young moon of 

 white sand that sweeps from Manomet to the tip 

 of the sandspit, with the Gurnet far to the right 

 and Plymouth's white houses rising in the middle 

 distance. It lacked only the cone of Vesuvius 

 smoking beyond to make the memory complete. 



Nor has the Bay of Naples bluer waters than 

 those that danced below me. Some stray current 

 of the Gulf Stream must have curled about the tip 

 of Cape Cod and spread its wonder bloom over 

 them. Here were the same exquisite soft blues, 

 shoaling into tender green, that I have seen among 

 the Florida keys. Surely it was like a transforma- 

 tion scene. The day before the torn sea wild with 

 wind and the dun clouds of a northeast gale hid- 

 ing the distance with a mystery of dread, a wind 

 that beat the forest with snow and chilled to the 

 marrow; and this day the warmth of an Italian 

 spring and the blue Vesuvian Bay. 



