Where bay and river tranquil blend,

     And leafy hillsides rise,

The spires of Providence ascend

     Against the ancient skies.

Here centuried domes of shining gold

     Salute the morning’s glare,

While slanting gables, odd and old,

     Are scatter’d here and there.

And in the narrow winding ways

     That climb o’er slope and crest,

The magic of forgotten days

     May still be found to rest.

A fanlight’s gleam, a knocker’s blow,

     A glimpse of Georgian brick —

The sights and sounds of long ago

     Where fancies cluster thick.

A flight of steps with iron rail,

     A belfry looming tall,

A slender steeple, carved and pale,

     A moss-grown garden wall.

A hidden churchyard’s crumbling proofs

     Of man’s mortality,

A rotting wharf where gambrel roofs

     Keep watch above the sea.

Square and parade, whose walls have towered

     Full fifteen decades long

By cobbled ways ‘mid trees embowered,

     And slighted by the throng.

Stone bridges spanning languid streams,

     Houses perched on the hill,

And courts where mysteries and dreams

     The brooding spirit fill.

Steep alley steps by vines concealed,

     Where small-paned windows glow

At twilight on a bit of field

     That chance has left below.

My Providence! What airy hosts

     Turn still thy gilded vanes;

What winds of elf that with grey ghosts

     People thine ancient lanes!

The chimes of evening as of old

     Above thy valleys sound,

While thy stern fathers ‘neath the mould

     Make blest thy sacred ground.

Thou dream’st beside the waters there,

     Unchang’d by cruel years;

A spirit from an age more fair

     That shines behind our tears.

Thy twinkling lights each night I see,

     Tho’ time and space divide;

For thou art of the soul of me,

     And always at my side!