BRIDGES 151 



span it is like an artery stripped of the surrounding 

 flesh. You see the blood-flow of the town's traffic 

 with startling clearness. Motors and vans, cabs and 

 wagons, cars and pedestrians, rumble behind you as 

 you lean on the rail, and when you turn to watch them 

 are thrown into sharp relief against the river and sky 

 perhaps against the foggy blue-gold of the harbour 

 mouth downstream. Where else but standing on the 

 bridge with grooms and porters could Tennyson have 

 seen Coventry go past, and dreamed again the ancient 

 legend of her Queen? Where but on Westminster 

 Bridge could Wordsworth have stood, the open sky 

 above him, the lapping water below, and seen the sun 

 come up over London and 



Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie : 

 Open to the fields and to the sky ? . 



Boston, too, is at her best and most characteristic 

 when seen from the Cambridge bridges, even that on 

 which Longfellow stood at midnight and pretended he 

 was a pessimist. Westward from the upper bridge, 

 over the white caps of the basin, the sun declines behind 

 Corey Hill in Brookline. Southward stretches the 

 broad highway of the bridge, alive with traffic, van- 

 ishing into the brick wilderness of the town. South- 

 eastward, looking once more across the dancing waters 

 of the basin, you see the new embankment flashing 

 green, and beyond that the mile-long row of houses on 



