Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79. | | | | New England: Gloucester, Mass. | | Midsummer in the City | | Epes Sargent (1813–1880) |
| | | O YE keen breezes from the salt Atlantic, | |
| Which to the beach, where memory loves to wander, | |
| On your strong pinions waft reviving coolness, | |
| Bend your course hither! | |
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| For in the surf ye scattered to the sunshine | 5 |
| Did we not sport together in my boyhood, | |
| Screaming for joy amid the flashing breakers, | |
| O rude companions? | |
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| Then to the meadows beautiful and fragrant, | |
| Where the coy Spring beholds her earliest verdure | 10 |
| Brighten with smiles that rugged seaside hamlet, | |
| How would we hasten! | |
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| There under elm-trees affluent in foliage, | |
| High o’er whose summit hovered the sea-eagle, | |
| Through the hot, glaring noontide have we rested, | 15 |
| After our gambols. | |
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| Vainly the sailor called you from your slumber: | |
| Like a glazed pavement shone the level ocean; | |
| While, with their snow-white canvas idly drooping, | |
| Stood the tall vessels. | 20 |
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| And when at length exulting ye awakened, | |
| Rushed to the beach, and ploughed the liquid acres, | |
| How have I chased you through the shivered billows, | |
| In my frail shallop! | |
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| Playmates, old playmates, hear my invocation! | 25 |
| In the close town I waste this golden summer, | |
| Where piercing cries and sounds of wheels in motion | |
| Ceaselessly mingle. | |
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| When shall I feel your breath upon my forehead? | |
| When shall I hear you in the elm-trees’ branches? | 30 |
| When shall we wrestle in the briny surges, | |
| Friends of my boyhood? | | | | |
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