"From the hills of home forth looking, far beneath the tent-like span Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland of Cape Ann."
Down the south side of the Po flows the Powow River in a series of cascades, the finest of which are now hidden by the mills, or arched over by the main street of the village of Amesbury. The hill is celebrated in several of Whittier's poems, including "Abram Morrison," "Miriam," and "Cobbler Keezar's Vision." The Powow, a little way above its plunge over the rocks where it gives power for the mills, flows in front of the Whittier home, and but the width of a block distant. The surface of its swift current is but a few feet below the level of Friend Street. Po Hill rises steeply from its left bank. The Powow is mentioned in the poem "The Fountain:"--
"Where the birch canoe had glided Down the swift Powow, Dark and gloomy bridges strided Those clear waters now; And where once the beaver swam, Jarred the wheel and frowned the dam."
[Illustration: THE FOUNTAIN, ON MUNDY HILL]
"The Fountain" is a spring that may be found on the western side of Mundy Hill. The oak mentioned in this poem is gone, and a willow takes its place. The Rocky Hill meeting-house is well worth the attention of visitors, as a well-preserved specimen of the meeting-houses of the olden time. Its pulpit, pews, and galleries retain their original form as when built in 1785. It is situated on the easternmost of the fine circlet of hills that incloses the valley of the Powow. This hill is well named, for here the melting glaciers left their most abundant deposit of boulders. A trolley line from Amesbury to Salisbury Beach passes this venerable edifice.
[Illustration: ROCKY HILL CHURCH, BUILT IN 1785]
Salisbury Beach, now covered with summer cottages, will hardly be recognized as the place described by Whittier in his "Tent on the Beach." When that poem was written, not one of these hundreds of cottages was built, and those who encamped here brought tents. Hampton Beach is a continuation of Salisbury Beach beyond the state line into New Hampshire. It has given its name to one of the most notable of Whittier's poems, and several ballads refer to it. "The Wreck of Rivermouth" has for its scene the mouth of the Hampton River, which, winding down from the uplands across salt meadows, and dividing this beach, finds its outlet to the sea. At the northern end of the beach is the picturesque promontory of Boar's Head, and eastward are seen the Isles of Shoals, and in the further distance the blue disk of Agamenticus. Whittier describes the place with his usual exactness:--