"Dear Madam.

I had occasion to visit Branford a few years ago and on my way there I determined to find some evidence of my Maltby progenitors.

On my arrival as I walked up from the little harbor to the vill- age and noticing the rolling and broken contour of the landscape, the winding of the street, through the valleys, also the loveliness of the hills upon which stands a few stately old elms and two churches, one an ancient looking stone structure, the other a more modern one of brick, caused such thoughts as the following lines of poetry.

'And thou!  Old Branford on the Main,
From Old World whence thy forbears came;
Seeking a Land where all is free;
Seeking a land of Liberty.
Thy harbor small, by land it locks
The passage in 'tween mermaid rocks
The --- --- --- glade and lace  (Impossible to decipher 3 words)
And ends the nearby landing place.

The scant abodes, much out of line
With zig-zag streets in serpentine
Thy elms waving in the breeze.
Ground undulating as the Seas.

Thy ancient church upon the hill
With unhewn stone its walls to fill
Its graveyards' mystic majesty
Point to the all-true Deity.

But now this lovely church of yore
Has lost its stately salient corps
For its array in tombstones brown
Has risen to the order of the Town.

The slabs with scroll artistic head
With Angels sentinels o'er the dead.
In copious lines of chiseled logs
Depict the humble lives they bore.

Old Time, by aid of frosts and rains
In scaleing off the hallowed names.
 (3rd line not decipherable.)
To future annals epigraph.

O Thou! famed relic of the past
Fell destiny doth hold thee fast;
Though throes of time obliterate
The Muses scroll doth animate.

And when the last call trump shall sound
The rising Saints in white robes gowned
The joyous ranks, both broad and long
Shall knell the echoes of their song.'

"The Country Churchyard." Dedicated to Maltby."

402

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