ove
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:--

"And fair are the sunny isles in view
East of the grisly Head of the Boar,
And Agamenticus lifts its blue
Disk of a cloud the woodlands o'er;
And southerly, when the tide is down,
'Twixt white sea-waves and sand-hills brown,
The beach-birds dance and