PLYMOUTH MAYFLOWERS 23 



But for all the lure of Plymouth woods with 

 their fragrance of trailing arbutus, from all the 

 grandeur of the wide outlook from Manomet 

 Heights, the hearts of all who come to Plymouth 

 must lead them back to the resting place of the 

 fathers on the brow of the little hill in 'the midst 

 of the town. There where the grass was not yet 

 green and the buttercups that will later shine in 

 gold have put forth but the tiniest beginnings of 

 their fuzzy, three-parted leaves, I watched the 

 sun sink, big and red in a golden mist, over a 

 land of whose coming material greatness Brad- 

 ford and his fellow Pilgrims could have had no 

 inkling. Seaward the tropic bloom of the water 

 was all gone, and there as the sun passed I saw 

 the cool steel of the bay catch the last rays in 

 little dimples of silver light. Manomet with- 

 drew, blue and mysterious in the haze of night- 

 fall. Out over the Gurnet, beyond, the sky 

 caught purples from the colors in the west, and 

 there, dropping below the horizon line, east 

 northeast toward England, I saw a sail vanish in 

 the soft haze as if it might be the first Mayflower, 

 sailing away from the heavy-hearted Pilgrims, 

 toward England and home. The sun^s last ray 

 touched it with a fleck of rose as it passed, a rose 



