Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

CHAPTER XXXXIX.

The habits of our people in the use of tobacco have been somewhat changeable. The use outside of medicine and surgery has been confined to smoking, chewing, snuffing and dipping. The last is practiced by applying moistened snuff with a brush to the gums, and has never been resorted to in New England to any considerable extent. I am inclined to think that it has been chiefly confined to the poor whites in the South. Snuff taking is a habit introduced into New England at a comparatively recent period, and of course was unknown to the aborigines. Its use had, however, a rapid growth, when once introduced, and in my youth was common among our people of both sexes, though I am inclined to think more so among women than men. In every grocery store there always stood on the counter two jars of snuff, and this fact alone shows its extensive use. I cannot recall more than thirty persons who were in the habit of carrying snuff boxes, and these did not belong to any special class or occupation. I remember that during the sessions of the Supreme and Common Pleas Courts an open box of snuff always lay on the clerk’s desk, and was frequently visited by the members of the bar, as well as by the judges on the bench.

It is said that of all the tobacco habits that of snuff taking is the most difficult to abandon. The story is told of Charles Lamb and Thomas Hone, both inveterate snuffers, walking one day on Hamstead Heath, and coming to the resolution to give up the habit, threw their snuff boxes away. The next morning Lamb visited the Heath to recover his box, and there encountered Hone hunting in the shrubbery for his.

The practice of smoking is ancient. While the use of cigars in England and the United States cannot be traced to a period earlier than 1700, pipes were used by the aborigines, and have been found in the ancient mounds of the West. Whether tobacco was smoked before the days of the Pilgrims, so far as New England was concerned, is doubtful, while at an earlier period the natives of the South and West undoubtedly both used and cultivated it. It is certain that as late as King Phillip’s War in 1676, the New England Indian, while smoking tobacco when he could get it, used various substitutes. On this point we have the testimony of Mrs. Rowlandson, the wife of the minister of Lancaster, Mass., who was captured by the Indians and confined in the Camp of King Phillip. When a messenger was sent to King Phillip to negotiate for her release, she sent back word asking her husband to send her some tobacco for Phillip. She stated in a later narrative that when she saw Phillip, “he bade me come in and sit down, and asked me whether I would smoke it, but this no way suited me. For though I had formerly used tobacco, yet I had left it ever since I was first taken. It seems to be a bait the devil lays to make men loose their precious time. I remember with shame how formerly when I had taken two or three pipes I was presently ready for another, such a bewitching ‘thing’ it is, but I thank God he has now given me power over it; surely there are many who may be better employed than to lie sucking a stinking ‘tobacco pipe.’” She further said that the Indians for want of tobacco smoked hemlock and ground ivy. From the above statement it will be seen that smoking was common to both sexes. The laws, however, from a very early period, were rigid in their provisions against smoking in public places. In 1638 the General Court ordered “that no man shall take any tobacco within twenty poles of any house, or so near as may endanger the same.” One of the latest statutes on the subject was passed in 1798, which “forbade carrying fire through the streets, except in a covered vessel, as well as smoking or having in one’s possession any lighted pipe or cigar in the streets or on the wharves.” This law remained in force many years. In 1835 a by-law was adopted by the town of Plymouth, which I believe has never been repealed, forbidding smoking in any street, lane, public square or wharf within the town. I do not remember to have seen in all my boyhood any person smoking about the streets, or at his work. No ship carpenter in his yard, no rigger on the mast, no blacksmith at the forge, no digger in the garden or street, ever held a pipe in his mouth, wasting the time of his employer, in cutting tobacco, and filling his pipe. It was not because the practice was an expensive one, but because the fashion of the day was opposed to it. The mechanic and the farmer smoked in a leisure hour, or after his meal, but no woman was seen at home or in the field, or anywhere else smoking at all. Doctors and lawyers smoked occasionally in their offices, business men rarely behind their counters, while a minister who used tobacco in any form was unknown. In later years, however, smoking has become a frequent practice among the clergy, but so far as my observation has gone, chiefly among those of the Episcopalian and Unitarian denominations. I once detected in the cheek of an eminent divine a suspicious swelling, and when I spoke of it, he said that it was his invariable habit to preach with a cud of tobacco in his mouth. Since the early days of which I speak, pipe smoking has largely taken the place of cigar smoking, and the use of both cigars and pipes has found its way into times and places where forty years ago it would not have been tolerated. Several causes have contributed to this change. In the first place cigars were much cheaper in 1840 and 1850, and their higher cost has led to the more economical use of the pipe. When I began to smoke in 1838, Havana cigars sold at retail at five dollars a quarter box of two hundred and fifty. The same cigars today would cost twenty dollars. In the second place the coming in of foreigners largely increased the use of the pipe, and lastly the Civil War taught the use of the pipe to soldiers in the camp, who under normal conditions would not have taken it up. Now we are seeing, to say nothing of smelling, either the cigar or the pipe everywhere, in the street, in the office, in court houses, in the state house, between the lips of the mechanic at his work, the provision dealer on his cart, and indeed almost in every place except the pulpit and school, from which it is a matter of congratulation that they are yet excluded. Being a smoker myself, I cannot be charged with prejudice when I express the opinion that this excessive and ill-timed use of tobacco not only violates rules of good taste and propriety, but is well nigh a nuisance.

The habit of using tooth picks is of recent origin. In Boston on any day between twelve and two o’clock, nearly every third woman met in the vicinity of Winter and West streets, has a tooth pick between her lips. This practice is made more vulgar when at table the hand is held over the mouth, for thus its vulgarity is acknowledged by those who persist in it.

The changing fashions in dress have been so constant that it is futile to attempt to trace them. The greatest change in the United States occurred at the close of the revolution, when what was called republican simplicity took the place of the dress which characterized the first three-quarters of the 18th century of which such fine illustrations may be found in the works of Smybert, Blackburn and Copley. There is something absurd about this so-called republican simplicity, which compels a representative of our government to appear at foreign courts in the garb of an American citizen, while he has his residence in one of the most lordly houses in London, and makes it the vogue for a bridegroom to appear at his wedding with nothing but the color of his skin to distinguish him from the colored waiter, while he sets up a livery and hunts through Herald’s college for a coat of arms to have painted on the door of his carriage. I am inclined to think that a false pride in the supposed possession of aristocratic blood has more to do with the formation of so-called patriotic societies than a true patriotic spirit.

In speaking of dress let me begin with the young. In my school days I wore a blue jacket with brass buttons and a stiff linen collar buttoned to it on the inside, and turned over the collar of the jacket. I never wore an overcoat, or even owned one, and when I entered college, the first thing I did was to go to John Earle, the tailor, and get measured for a long tail broadcloth coat, and buy a camlet cloak. The frock coat was unknown, and the cloak was indispensable in attending prayers when hastily jumping out of bed I hurried to chapel often with nothing under it but a night gown and trousers and boots. During the summer months many boys went barefooted, not on account of poverty, but simply for economy. A writer in the Old Colony Memorial in 1837 misrepresented this custom in the statement that “old men had a great coat and a pair of boots, the boots generally lasting for life. Shoes and stockings were not worn by the young men, and by but few men in farming business, and young women in their ordinary work did not wear stockings and shoes.” I suppose that during the school season there are fewer barefooted boys then formerly, but at other times I do not think that there has been any change as to footwear. As to overcoats I have known many persons who went without them from preference in the coldest weather. Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch of Boston never wore one, and my old schoolmate, George Sampson, the late proprietor of the Boston directory, never did. I met the latter one afternoon in Boston when the thermometer was about zero, and I said, “George, I suspect that on such a day as this you wear a thicker undershirt?” To my surprise he said that he had never worn an undershirt in his life. I propose in speaking of dress to confine myself to those articles worn at various times which would strike the present generation as strange. About the year 1840, gentlemen’s boots were two inches longer than the foot, and turned up like the dasher of a sleigh. At about the same time, or a little earlier, trousers skin tight, put on necessarily with the boots already in them, were worn, and then immediately after loose trousers with plaits. For many years after the revolution, and continuing into my own days, the woolen cloths, of which dresses were made, were often spun and woven at home. During the 18th century in the small towns and country districts, nearly every family made a coarse cloth called lindsy-woolsy, with the warp of linen and the woof of wool. It is a mistake to suppose that in the earliest colonial times spinning wheels were much used until fulling mills were built in the last half of the 17th century, and it is not probable that Priscilla Alden ever used one until she was forty years of age. The small wheels known as flax wheels were first brought to Boston by the Scotch Irish in the first quarter of the 18th century. Of all articles of dress there is none in my opinion which so unerringly stamps the lady as a neat, tidy footgear. I say it with fear and trembling, but here goes, there must also be a white stocking. The contour of the foot is destroyed by a shoe, especially one without a heel, and the outlines of the ankle and limb are lost on any other color than white. The hat comes next, not set on the head like a liberty cap on a pole, but one whether large or small, as much belonging to the figure as the lily to its stem. Then comes the glove, never white in the street, a well fitting dress, not necessarily of expensive material, and withall as few ornaments as possible, and you have so far as flesh and blood are concerned, a faultless woman. A eulogist of the late Susan B. Anthony, herself a noble woman, said that she never was afraid to see her friend mount a table or platform to speak, because she knew that her boots and stockings were immaculate.

Ear-rings, concerning which I find many interesting items in the work of Alice Morse Earle on costumes, have come down to us from a period as early as the 16th century. They were, however, in their early days, worn by men more than by women, and in many cases only in one ear. Charles the First, on going to execution, wore a pearl pear shaped ear-ring, about five-eighths of an inch long, which is now owned by the Duke of Portland; and Shakespeare and Sir Walter Raleigh wore them. In my youth their use among women was almost universal, and I can recall many men who wore plain gold rings, and every young lady on leaving school had her ears bored as a matter of course.

Among the bonnets at various times in fashion I shall refer alone to the poke bonnet because its etymology is a little confused. This bonnet had plaits around its crown and sides. One of the many definitions of the word poke given in the Century dictionary, which no library is complete without, is, “to poke plaits in a ruff,” and I have no doubt that “poke bonnet” meant merely a bonnet with plaits poked in the ruff. I must omit the scarlet cloak with its black silk quilted hood, worn by elderly women in my youth, the busks worn in the corsets, made of whalebone, steel or wood, the bustles below the waist behind, the quilted mandarins for cold weather, the India shawls now packed away in cedar closets awaiting their return in the revolving wheel of fashion, turbans, lace caps, night caps, hoops and other female paraphernalia, forming a sea without a shore, and speak lastly of pattens, which in my early boyhood were giving place to the overshoe and rubbers.

I remember a pair of pattens in an old closet where they had been consigned to an undeserved exile after many centuries of faithful service. The patten consisted of a wooden stock like the stock of a skate, with an oval iron ring attached to its under side, and with toe and heel pieces fastened by straps to the foot and ankle, its purpose being to protect the foot from mud and slush. It can be traced back to the 14th century, when it was called the galoe-shoe or galoshe. After its introduction into France, where it was called patin, the English galoshe became patten, but as if to revenge itself against the usurper, it has had a resurrection, and now lives in its legitimate successor, the galoshe of the present day.

I shall devote a portion of this chapter to a mention of those words and phrases which have made their appearance at various times, and have become incorporated for a longer or shorter time in the language of our people. Only a few of these are peculiar to Plymouth. Some have come down to us from our English ancestors, some owe their origin to the different languages of continental Europe, some are slang, which have found their way through unknown channels into the speech of men, and a few through ignorance of orthography have found a place in colloquial use. My reference to these must be restricted by necessarily limited space.

Some of my readers may be surprised at the number of words and names which have come to us from foreign tongues, and have made themselves as much at home as if they were to the manor born. We have the word wharf from the Swedish hworf, and the word dock from the Gothic dok, lane from the Dutch laan, alley from the French allee, derived from the verb aller, to go. The verb tedder meaning to ted or spread hay was introduced by the Irish when they began to work on our farms. Fishermen in Gloucester, Provincetown and Plymouth and other places, after drying codfish on flakes, yaffle them up and carry them into the fish house. The word yaffle is old English, and means an armful and the word stadle is the Scotch stathel, and means the stakes driven into a salt meadow, on which salt hay is to be piled. Scuttle comes from the French escoutelle, and the word kench, which means the bin in which salt codfish are piled, is old English. The word kid not only stands for an animal, but is also the name of the square bin on the deck of a fishing vessel by the side of each fisherman, in which he throws his fish. Sailors got into the way of calling any box without a cover a kid. I remember a story told by my mother when I was a boy of her going to church and finding a strange man in her pew, who jumped over the rail into the next pew, saying, I beg your pardon, Madam, I got into the wrong kid. The word coverlid, often called coverlet, is French derived from the French word couvrelit, cover bed. The word sass applied to vegetables, and also meaning impudence, is not as many suppose, a Yankee slang word, but has an English origin, and is still used in the county of Essex, in England. The word cabbage, as applied to the vegetable, came from Holland, and was introduced into England by Sir Anthony Ashley. He was accused of securing much loot, while holding a command in Spain, and he was so closely associated with the vegetable in the public mind, that on his monument at Wimbourne the head of a cabbage was sculptured, and in consequence of his looting the word became applied to looting in general, and finally to the odds and ends saved by tailors in their trade. The word arter, for after, came down to us from England, and if I remember right, was used by Governor Bradford in his history. The word fetch is an old Saxon word, used by Bacon, Shakespeare and many other old writers, and is worthy of respect, and continued use, though at present excluded from elegant speech. The word fetching expressing attractiveness in beauty or dress is a comparatively recent half slang innovation. The origin of the word contraptions, meaning new notions, I do not know, but I have heard it many times in my day. Arey or airey came from England, where it was sometimes called arrow or narrow. Hearth in two syllables, with emphasis on the e is a word I have never heard out of Plymouth. As long as I can remember it has been used by the deer hunters in Plymouth woods. Once Branch Pierce, the famous hunter, put Daniel Webster on a stand, and later in the day called out to him that the dogs had been out of hearth an hour, and that the hunt was up. The word dike as applied to a sloping grassy bank or terrace, is universal in Plymouth, and as far as I know, never used in that sense anywhere except in Plymouth, and its vicinity. Crojeck or crotchet, is a common corruption of cross jack in Plymouth and elsewhere as applied to the lower yard on the mizzen mast of a ship. Chimley for chimney, has been common in Scotland, and may be found in Scott’s Rob Roy. In the United States it is usually spelled chimbley, but it is rarely heard in Plymouth.

James Russell Lowell has these lines:

“Ag’in the chimbley crooknecks hung,

An’ in amongs ’em, rusted,

The ole queen’s arm that granther Young

Fetched back from Concord, busted.”

Sun-up for sunrise, I do not remember to have heard in Plymouth more than once, but I have heard it often in other Plymouth county towns. As the opposite of sun-down, which is English, it seems as correct as sunset or sunrise, and may be properly used. Bile is often used for boil, and has been thought by some of the best writers to be more correct. It is, however, going out of use. Brewis is an English word meaning bread covered with broth, but when introduced into New England, it was applied to rye and Indian crusts boiled with milk and butter.

The word sleigh comes from the Dutch sluy; squash came down from the aborigines, by whom it was called estata, or vine apple; carrots came from Holland, and some growing wild bore a flower which the English called Queen Anne’s lace. The cochroach was the Dutch kackenlack; potatoes, which have been said to have been introduced by the Irish, were raised by the Dutch in New York as early as 1654, and were called pataddes. It is not unlikely that as they were called Irish potatoes, the slang word paddies applied to the Irish, came from pataddes.

The word “certain” a few years ago came into use in answer to certain questions as for instance—are you going to Boston tomorrow? “Certain;” but it seems to have given place to the word “sure.” For a time, “you bet,” was used in the same way, as for instance to the statement, “that was a good dinner,” the answer was, “you bet.” Chores probably comes from the old English “char,” as does also the word “charwomen.” The word cow pronounced kyou, has been said to be peculiar to New England country towns, but there can be no greater mistake, for I have heard it so pronounced by natives of South Carolina, and it is so pronounced today in the shires of Essex and Sussex, in England. Fornent or fornenst was originally a Scotch word meaning opposite to, as for instance his house was fornent the church. It was carried to Ireland, and by the Irish introduced here. I heard it for the first time about 1854. “Gab,” now common, was used by Chaucer as we use it. The English laugh at the word “guess,” and call it a vulgar Americanism, but it was used by Locke, Milton and Chaucer.

“Her yellow hair was braided in a tress,

Behind her back a yard long I guess.”

“Poke” in one of its many meanings is a pocket or bag, as in the words, to buy a pig in a poke, that is without seeing it. “Streak it,” to run fast, was heard by me for the first time when hunting in the Plymouth woods. Branch Pierce, the hunter, after placing his party on their stands would take his son Tom and take short cuts through the woods to head off the deer. When a good chance occurred the old man could be heard calling out, Streak it, Tommy. There was another Thomas Pierce living in the neighborhood, so in order to distinguish them one was called Squire Tom, and the other Streak it Tommy. I have never heard the word “seen” in the sense of saw in Plymouth, but I have heard it frequently in Boston among Englishmen and immigrants from the Dominion. Muckrakes is a word recently rescued from oblivion, but with a wrong understanding of its meaning. According to Professor DeVere, now or late Professor of modern languages in the University of Virginia, and author of “Studies in English” muckrakes are those who rake for the purpose of finding something valuable and worthy of preservation. Rag pickers are in one sense muckrakes. There are two offensive words which have recently found a lodgement in our vocabulary, chiefly, however, among inexperienced writers. One of these words, “one,” taken out of its legitimate meaning, seems to be due either to a lack of taste or to a mistaken notion that it is elegant. The following sentence explains what I mean. “When one writes a letter one must be careful how one expresses oneself, lest one finds that one makes a mistake in using too many ones.” The other is the word “gotten,” which to me always suggests a writer who fancies himself an accurate scholar, and would call aisle of a church “oil,” and one of its pillars, a “pillow.” There are two other words not offensive, but objectionable, which I find constantly in new novels, “peering,” for looking, and “perturbed” for disturbed, or agitated, or “annoyed.” As for instance “in peering out of the window I was perturbed by an unusual sight.”

The use of exaggerations and superlatives is every day becoming more common. Newspaper reporters and associated press men are responsible for many of these. With them it never rains, but it pours, every snow spit is a blizzard, every fresh breeze a gale, every gale a hurricane, every wave is mountain high, every collision is a crash, and every crowd a surging mob. New newspaper words are constantly creeping into our vocabulary. Among the most recent are “defi” for “defiance,” and “confer” for “conference.” There is another class of words and phrases having their origin in athletics and games of various kinds, which are constantly found in the newspapers, and even in congressional and other speeches. “Stand pat,” “win out,” “flush,” and “full deck” are some of those which are unworthy of the press or the speech of a legislator. There is still another class quite frequently used which are really nothing but veiled oaths with the spirit if not the letter of profanity behind them. Among them are by-jingo, land-sakes, by-George, by-gum, by-thunder, good-gracious, dern it, thunder and Mars, heavens and earth, all fired for hell fired, gol darn it, darnation, Lord-a-mussy, mercy sakes alive, great Scott, by the eternal, and lastly, tarnation, as in the lines of John Noakes and May Styles:

“Poor honest John ’tis plain he knows

But little of life’s range.

Or he’d a know’d gals oft at fust

Have ways tarnation strange.”

In the above selections of words and phrases I have of course omitted a large number, the origin and etomology of which it would be interesting to trace. I must, however, in order to finish my memories in this chapter, proceed to the record of streets laid out since 1825, as proposed in the beginning of the chapter.

LeBaron alley, leading from Leyden street to Middle street, was laid out as a townway Sept. 7 and 10, 1832.

The way around Cole’s Hill from Leyden street was laid out Nov. 27, 1827, and May 14, 1829.

Pleasant street was laid out and altered at various times, June 5, 1820, May 12, 1825, Nov. 5, 1845, March 25, 1867, and January 4, 1887.

Russell street was laid out April 20, 1833.

Union street was laid out August 4, 1841, and Nov. 5, 1865.

Samoset street was laid out from Court street to the South Meadow Road, Dec. 8, 1854.

Cedarville Road was laid out Nov. 15, 1855.

The Manomet House Road was laid out September 23, 1851.

The way from Harvey Bartlett’s to the Pine Hills was laid out July 13, 1848.

Warren Avenue was laid out Nov. 5, 1849, and August, 1850.

Robinson street was laid out April 6, 1859 and September 10, 1859.

Road from Chiltonville to the Manomet Road was laid out July 9, 1851, and April 9, 1866.

Cushman street was laid out Oct. 4, 1856.

Allerton street in part was laid out Oct. 4, 1856.

Allerton street in part was laid out March 26, 1877.

Chilton street was laid out April 3, 1882.

Cedar Village Road was laid out January 4, 1876.

Bradford street was laid out Sept. 10, 1859.

Cliff street was laid out March 20, 1876.

Oak street was laid out March 9, 1874, and March 1, 1875.

Davis street was laid out January 3, 1882.

Federal Road was laid out January 5, 1869.

Franklin street was laid out April 6, 1857, and July 6, 1865.

Fremont street was laid out Sept. 10, 1859.

Fremont street was extended June 22, 1895.

North Green street was laid out Oct. 4, 1856.

High street was widened June 24, 1870.

Corner of Court and North streets was laid out in 1892.

Main street was widened Aug. 3, 1886.

Jefferson street was laid out June 25, 1870.

Lothrop Place, laid out September 10, 1859, and Oct. 14, 1872.

Rocky Hill Road was laid out January 6, 1874.

Court Square, south side, laid out April 6, 1857.

South Russell street was laid out January 7, 1868.

Sagamore street was laid out June 25, 1870.

Street from Court street at Seaside to the railroad, was laid out January 6, 1874.

Sandy Gutter street laid out Oct. 21, 1871.

Stafford street laid out June 17, 1882.

Road from Manomet to Sandwich, January 2, 1872.

Road from Manomet to Fresh Pond, January 6, 1874.

Manomet Road, south of the bridge, February 7, 1857.

Manomet Road at the dam, January 1, 1884.

Market street, widened from the bake house, south, December 31, 1873.

Market street, widened at the corner of Leyden street, November 5, 1883.

Market street, widened at Spring Hill, January 1, 1890.

Massasoit street, laid out June 25, 1870.

Mayflower street, laid out April 6, 1857, and Sept. 10, 1859.

Mt. Pleasant street, laid out April 6, 1857.

Water street, extended April 4, 1881, Dec. 9, 1893, and June 22, 1895.

Thomas alley, discontinued March 28, 1885.

Waverly street, laid out October 4, 1856.

White Horse Road, laid out March 5, 1883.

Whiting street, laid out March 28, 1885.

Willard Place, laid out March 2, 1863.

Winslow street (Ocean Place), laid out April 3, 1882.

Spooner street at Seaside, laid out March 6, 1893.

Standish Avenue, laid out April 14, 1896, and March 6, 1899.

Vallerville road, laid out January 3, 1893, and March 19, 1901.

Washington street, laid out July 6, 1865.

Forest avenue, laid out February 20, 1904.

Billington street, laid out August 12, 1902.

Pump station Road, laid out August 12, 1902.

Road from Russell Mills to Long Pond Road, was laid out March 14, 1898.

Sever street was laid out January 26, 1901.

South Park Avenue, laid out January 26, 1901.

Clyfton street was laid out September 27, 1890.

Carver street was laid out March 28, 1854, February 12, 1884, and February 10, 1885.

Centre Hill Pond road was laid out August 6, 1895.

Cherry street was laid out March 6, 1899.

Alden street was laid out March 9, 1891, and April 6, 1891.

Atlantic street was laid out April 6, 1891.

Bartlett street was laid out March 13, 1886.

Brewster street was laid out December 1, 1884.

N. Wood & Co. Factory road at Chiltonville was laid out April 9, 1866.

Darby station entrance was laid out March 6, 1893.

Hall town road was laid out December 9, 1893.

Hamilton street was laid out June 5, 1897.

Highland Place was laid out April 2, 1888.

Howes Lane was laid out March 9, 1891, and March 7, 1892.

Leyden and Water street corner was widened March 9, 1891.

Lincoln street was laid out March 9, 1891.

Murray street was laid out March 5, 1883, and March 3, 1902.

Bay View avenue was laid out March 3, 1902.

Road from Manomet to Vallerville was laid out March 19, 1901.

Nelson street was laid out January 6, 1896.

Newfields street was laid out July 1, 1890, February 23, 1901.

Middle street was widened March 6, 1899.

Towns street was laid out February 10, 1906.

Main street was widened at the corner of Town Square, March 12, 1906.

Russell street was widened from Court street to the Registry, December 1, 1905.

Town Square was widened at corner of Main street, November 1, 1905.

Here, my readers, these memories must close. Any pleasure which you may have received in reading them has been more than equalled by my own in writing them. They present a meagre record of the memories of a long life whose beginning and end are mysteries.

Helpless I lay upon the shore

Of a world unknown to me;

How, I wonder, came I o’er

The dark mysterious sea.

Tell me, oh tell me, whence I came;

Is there another shore?

This sun, these skies, are they the same

That I have seen before?

Now, life’s journey nearly o’er,

The land beyond the sea,

As when I lay upon the shore,

Is still unknown to me.

Another shore before me lies,

Bounding another sea;

May I there find the sun and skies

Before unknown to me.