From 1630, when Boston was founded by an
important branch of Winthrop's colony, to
1826, when these reminiscences begin, it had
grown, slowly and not very regularly, from a
little hamlet of settlers, sick and half starved,
to a brisk commercial town of about forty-five
thousand people. There is no better description than Mr. Emerson's, which I heard him read, fresh from his own notes, on the platform
of Faneuil Hall, on the centennial of the Boston Tea-Party, December 16, 1873. It was said that he had written the last verses in the
train as he rode from Concord. The notes in his hand were on various bits of paper, and I believe that the poem was born on that day.
The rocky nook, with hill-tops three,
Looked eastward from the farms,
And twice each day the flowing sea
Took Boston in its arms.
*****
The wild rose and the barberry thorn
Hung out their summer pride,
Where now on heated pavements worn
The feet of millions stride.
