And Wesley's tenets, like a tide,
These level shores with love suffuse,
Where'er his patient preachers ride.
The landscape quivered with the swells
And felt the steamer's paddle stroke,
That tossed the hollow gum-tree shells,
As if some puffing craft of hell's
The fisher chased in Pocomoke.

Anon the river spreads to coves,
And in the tides grow giant groves.
The water shines like ebony,
And odors resinous ascend
From many an old balsamic tree,
Whose roots the terrapin befriend;
The great ball cypress, fringed with beard,
Presides above the water oak,
As doth its shingles, well revered,
O'er many a happy home endeared
To thousands far from Pocomoke.

And solemn hemlocks drink the dew,
Like that old Socrates they slew;
The piny forests moan and moan,
And in the marshy splutter docks,
As if they grazed on sky alone,
Rove airily the herds of ox.
Then, like a narrow strait of light,
The banks draw close, the long trees yoke,
And strong old manses on the height