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PORT TOWNSEND.
Above the waters of the inland sea,
Whose tides, like rushing troops of cavalry,
Omnipotent, bear down from ocean's breast;
And surge, and roar, and leap from crest to crest,
Until exhausted on Olympia's sands,
This city of the Sound resplendent stands.
Above the swelling and the ebbing tide,
She shines refulgent, like a jeweled bride.
The sailor, in his lumber-laden bark,
As down the Sound he sails, in light or dark,
Keeps well to larboard, that his eye may rest,
Upon the shining city in the west;
And when, in sunlight, she salutes his eye,
She seems a radiant city of the sky;
But if his prow approaches in the night,
He sees, in fancy, heaven's celestial light.
Adown the gulf, a score of miles and more,
Port Gamble nestles on the western shore;
The Indian, in his light canoe, may ride
The distance in one ebb or flow of tide.
These forests, dark and dense, of fir and pine,
Through which no ray of sun may ever shine,
Give up their tall, symmetric masts and spars,
To bear the sails of Commerce and of Mars
Through every sea, to dominate the wave,
Defy the tempest, and the wind enslave.
