They wave their silent welcome and farewell.
"'Sail on,' it says, 'sail on, ye stately ships!
And with your floating bridge the ocean span;
Be mine to guard the light from all eclipse,
Be yours to bring man nearer unto man.'"
During the years after 1843, when Longfellow bought the Craigie House at Cambridge, his thoughts turned back with longing to the old home and the old town, and he wrote:
"Often I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of the dear old town,