Framed Photo and Poem

      Vesper Song

 Lies the sunset splendor far and wide

            on the golden tide!

Drifting slow toward yonder evening red,

With the faint stars sparkling overhead,

            Peacefully we glide.

Sweet is rest: The summer’s day is done,

            Gone the ardent sun.

All is still: No wind of twilight blows;

Shuts the evening like a crimson rose;

            Night comes like a nun.

Lift we loving voices pure and clear

            To the Father’s ear:

Fragrant as the flowers the thoughts we raise

Up to heaven, while the ocean ways

            Draws the darkness near.

                      Celia Thaxter.

 When her mother died, Celia Thaxter was grief-stricken and for a time, became interested in spiritualism. This interest could have inspired the climactic incident in Jewett’s story, “The Foreigner ” (1900).