And lovely islands clothed in palm,
Closed round the sound of Pocomoke.

The pungy boats at anchor swing,
The long canoes were oystering,
And moving barges played the seine
Along the beaches of Tangiers;
I heard the British drums again
As in their predatory years,
When Kedge's Straits the Tories swept,
And Ross's camp-fires hid in smoke.
They plundered all the coasts except
The camp the Island Parson kept
For praying men of Pocomoke.

And when we thread in quaint intrigue
Onancock Creek and Pungoteague,
The world and wars behind us stop.
On God's frontiers we seem to be
As at Rehoboth wharf we drop,
And see the Kirk of Mackemie:
The first he was to teach the creed
The rugged Scotch will ne'er revoke;
His slaves he made to work and read,
Nor powers Episcopal to heed,
That held the glebes on Pocomoke.

But quiet nooks like these unman
The grim predestinarian,
Whose soul expands to mountain views;