136 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



old moon, blown landward by little winds of dawn, 

 making port on the shore of " hither Manomet." 

 In the velvety blackness of this ultimate hour of 

 night the slender sail curved sweetly backward 

 toward the sea, and the shallop seemed drawn to 

 the land by a lodestone, as was the ship of Sinbad 

 the Sailor, and when it magically climbed the dark 

 headland and sailed away into the sky above it 

 drew out of the sea behind it the first light of 

 glorious morning. From Manomet head to the 

 Gurnet the horizon showed a level sea line of 

 palest garnet that deepened, moment by moment, 

 till the coming sun arched it with rose and bounded 

 from it, a flattened globule of ruby fire. I like to 

 think that the path of gold with which the sun 

 glorified the stippled steel of the sea was the very 

 one by which the first Mayflower came in from 

 Provincetown, the sails nobly set and the ship 

 pressing onward to that memorable anchorage 

 within the protecting white arm of the sandspit. 



I like to think that the sweet curve of the old 

 moon's slender sail sways in by Manomet each 

 month in loving remembrance of that other shallop 

 that so magically won by the roar of the breakers 



