Dogtown Common
DOGTOWN COMMON
Inland among the lonely cedar dells
Of old Cape Ann, near Gloucester by the sea,
Still live the dead — in homes that used to be.
All day in dreamy spells
They tattle low with tongues of tinkling cattle
bells.
Or spirit tappings of some hollow tree.
And there, all night — all night, out of the dark —
They bark — and bark.
No highroad wmds by that deserted way;
But on a dmgy map m the town hall
At Gloucester, one may read upon the wall:
''Old road from Sandy Bay
Up through the woods to 'Squam the meetmg-
house." — Today
That horse-road is a rabbit-track, so small
The ghost of Sabbath pilgrim there would fail
His ancient trail.
Yet often a footloose pilgrim by that track
Still climbs the cape through bog and tangled
vine
Up granite boulders, where by some green pine
He pauses and looks back
Toward the blue summer sea where gull-white
schooners tack,
And snuflFs keen smells of berry-bush and brine
On the warm wind, and harkens the noon-weary
Chime of the veery.
From Pigeon Cove three miles back in the wood
The boulders heap up in a wild moraine —
Gray ruined tabernacles of the rain
And starry solitude:
A Stonehenge of the storms that Druid glaciers
hewed
In supplication to the primal pain,
While yet the world groaned in the mortal
throes
From which man rose.
There lie the lonely commons of the dead —
The houseless homes of Dogtown. Still their
souls
Tenant the bleak doorstones and cellar holes
Where once their quick loins bred
Strong fisher men whp fought wiih storms at
the masthead,
And women folk who took their bitter toll
Of deaths with only their old dogs to be
A memory.