Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

Middle States: Bay Ridge, N. Y.

At Bay Ridge, Long Island

By Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907)

PLEASANT it is to lie amid the grass

Under these shady locusts, half the day,

Watching the ships reflected on the Bay,

Topmast and shroud, as in a wizard’s glass:

To see the happy-hearted martins pass,

Brushing the dew-drops from the lilac spray:

Or else to hang enamored o’er some lay

Of fairy regions: or to muse, alas!

On Dante, exiled, journeying outworn;

On patient Milton’s sorrowfulest eyes

Shut from the splendors of the Night and Morn:

To think that now, beneath the Italian skies,

In such clear air as this, by Tiber’s wave,

Daisies are trembling over Keats’s grave.