Star-
gemmed depths seemed to shine with a light of their own,
transforming its radiant sapphire gleam, shedding it over the
glowing water and shore, tipping with silver the shrubbery at
its edge which in the dim distance formed a scene that was
enchanting. The softly sighing leaves mingled their notes with
the rippling waves and:
"Peacefully the quiet stars
Came out one after one;
The holy twilight fell upon the sea,
The summer day was done."
Dawn came with a burst of glory, and the oncoming light of the
soft, deep blue and the alluring purple. bloom that spread o'er
the ocean was Nature's compensation for those who rose early.
Before the stars had all gone to their hiding place and while
the light of a few large planets was growing dim, fading into
the clay, we were making our way down to the shore through dewy
grass, azaleas, and various shrubs, where the swamp sparrows,
robins, and catbirds were greeting the new day from their bushy
coverts with their songs of gladness.
How many songsters took part in this matitudinal concert, we are
unable to state, but there were a great number. The volume of
sweet notes would sometimes swell to a full-toned orchestra, and
then for a brief time it would die away like the flow and ebb of
the tides of a sea of melody. The robins were undoubtedly the
most gifted of all the vocalists, and their old familiar songs
heard along the seashore seemed to have an added sweetness;
their notes being as strong and pure as those of a silver flute,
making the seaside echoes ring. We have heard many robins sing,
but never have been so impressed with the excellent quality of
their songs as on that early morning, when they flung out their
medley of notes upon the balmy air. No one could doubt that here
were true artists, singing for the pleasure of it.
All along the shore lay huge boulders telling of a more ancient
pilgrimage to these parts; of a great moving mass of ice in the
gray dawn of time, that crept slowly over the land, leaving a
"stern and rock bound coast." Perhaps Plymouth Rock itself may
have been one of the number that, like these huge gray boulders
on which we stood, arrived thousands of years ago.
We returned to the hotel and after breakfast, proceeded on our
way to the old historic town of Plymouth. "The road that leads
thither is daily thronged with innumerable wheels; on a summer
day the traveler may count motors by the thousand." Yet if you
pause here awhile you may soon find within a few rods of the
fine highway primitive woodland that will give you an impression
of what it must have been three hundred years ago.
