"----the breezy dome of groves,
The shadows of Deering's woods,"

because they were in one of Longfellow's loveliest and tenderest poems;
and I made an errand to the docks, for the sake of the

"---black wharves and the slips,
And the sea-tides tossing free,
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea,"

mainly for the reason that these were colors and shapes of the fond
vision of the poet's past. I am in doubt whether it was at this time or
a later time that I went to revere

"--the dead captains as they lay
In their graves o'erlooking the tranquil bay,
where they in battle died,"

but I am quite sure it was now that I wandered under

"--the trees which shadow each well-known street,
As they balance up and down,"

for when I was next in Portland the great fire had swept the city avenues
bare of most of those beautiful elms, whose Gothic arches and traceries I
well remember.

The fact is that in those days I was bursting with the most romantic