UPPER TOWN.

CHAPTER I.


And now, kind reader, westward ho!
Across the Sappers' Bridge we go;
When first in youth I cross'd it o'er,
The arch was wood, "and nothing more"--
As Edgar A. Poe doth remark
About that raven big and dark--
The wooden span, I mean, stretched o'er
The channel's width from shore to shore,
On which skilled artificers laid
The arch of stone, so truly made,
And strong, that it to-day appears,
After the crush of forty years
And more, impervious to decay,
As if 'twere built but yesterday.
I stand upon the western side,
And see in all its verdant pride
The hill crowned with its ancient trees,
Who's foliage rustled in the breeze
For centuries, all branching wide,
Standing untouched on every side;
A spot where the Algonquin _magi_,
May have reclined "_sub tegmine fagi_;"
For when across the Sapper's Bridge,
The prospect was a fine beech ridge,