The feast was followed by cigars, Simms having begun to smoke of late
years to discourage a tendency to stoutness. Then all would join in
the diversions of the afternoon, which sometimes led to the "Edge of
the Swamp," a gruesome place which the poet of Woodlands had
celebrated in his verse. Here

Cypresses,
Each a great, ghastly giant, eld and gray
Stride o'er the dusk, dank tract.

Around the sombre cypress trees coiled

Fantastic vines
That swing like monstrous serpents in the sun.

There are living snakes in the swamp, yet more terrifying than the
viny serpents that circle the cypresses, and

The steel-jaw'd cayman from his grassy slope
Slides silent to the slimy, green abode
Which is his province.

Now and then a bit of sunny, poetic life touches upon the gloomy place,
for

See! a butterfly
That, travelling all the day, has counted climes
Only by flowers ...
Lights on the monster's brow.