Thacher was Avery's
companion and survived to tell the tale. Mather's Magnalia, III. 2,
gives further Particulars of Parson Avery's End, and suggests the title
of the poem.
WHEN the reaper's task was ended, and the
summer wearing late,
Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife
and children eight,
Dropping down the river-harbor in the shallop
"Watch and Wait."
Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow summer-
morn,
With the newly planted orchards dropping their
fruits first-born,
And the home-roofs like brown islands amid a sea
of corn.
Broad meadows reached out 'seaward the tided
creeks between,
And hills rolled wave-like inland, with oaks and
walnuts green;--
A fairer home, a--goodlier land, his eyes had never
seen.
Yet away sailed Parson Avery, away where duty led,
And the voice of God seemed calling, to break the
living bread
To the souls of fishers starving on the rocks of
Marblehead.
All day they sailed: at nightfall the pleasant land-
breeze died,
The blackening sky, at midnight, its starry lights
denied,
And far and low the thunder of tempest prophesied.
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