REEN verged, glancing Wynander, first, fairest of our meres,
How potent was its fairy charm—how perfect was the spell
That bound me to its beauty once in youth’s untrammel’d years
And held me lingering, lingering at its Ferry’s famed Hotel.
’Twas ere the railway whistle ’woke the echoes of the hills,
And Arnold[8] the vivacious perch’d as yet behind the mail,
And that fine old English autocratic Boniface, Ben Bills,[8]
Ruled with a wholesome despotism the Ferry and Hotel.
And Benjamin’s chief ferryman was stalwart old John Long,
A veteran of the wrestling ring, (its records hold his name,)