And when we thread in quaint intrigue
    Onancock Creek and Pungoteague,
      The world and wars behind us stop. 
    On God’s frontiers we seem to be
      As at Rehoboth wharf we drop,
    And see the Kirk of Mackemie: 
      The first he was to teach the creed
    The rugged Scotch will ne’er revoke;
      His slaves he made to work and read,
      Nor powers Episcopal to heed,
    That held the glebes on Pocomoke.

    But quiet nooks like these unman
    The grim predestinarian,
      Whose soul expands to mountain views;
    And Wesley’s tenets, like a tide,
      These level shores with love suffuse,
    Where’er his patient preachers ride. 
      The landscape quivered with the swells
    And felt the steamer’s paddle stroke,
      That tossed the hollow gum-tree shells,
      As if some puffing craft of hell’s
    The fisher chased in Pocomoke.

    Anon the river spreads to coves,
    And in the tides grow giant groves. 
      The water shines like ebony,
    And odors resinous ascend
      From many an old balsamic tree,
    Whose roots the terrapin befriend;
      The great ball cypress, fringed with beard,
    Presides above the water oak,
      As doth its shingles, well revered,
      O’er many a happy home endeared
    To thousands far from Pocomoke.

    And solemn hemlocks drink the dew,
    Like that old Socrates they slew;
      The piny forests moan and moan,
    And in the marshy splutter docks,
      As if they grazed on sky alone,
    Rove airily the herds of ox. 
      Then, like a narrow strait of light,
    The banks draw close, the long trees yoke,
      And strong old manses on the height
      Stand overhead, as to invite
    To good old cheer on Pocomoke.

    And cunning baskets midstream lie
    To trap the perch that gambol by;
      In coves of creek the saw-mills sing,
    And trim the spar and hew the mast;
      And the gaunt loons dart on the wing,
    To see the steamer looming past. 
      Now timber shores and massive piles
    Repel our hull with friendly stroke,
      And guide us up the long defiles,
      Till after many fairy miles
    We reach the head of Pocomoke.

    Is it Snow Hill that greets me back
    To this old loamy cul-de-sac? 
      Spread on the level river shore,
    Beneath the bending willow-trees
      And speckled trunks of sycamore,
    All moist with airs of rival seas? 
      Are these old men who gravely bow,
    As if a stranger all awoke,
      The same who heard my parents vow,
    —­Ah well! in simpler days than now—­
    To love and serve by Pocomoke?