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| I LOVE to think of old Ipswich town, | |
| Old Ipswich town in the East countree, | |
| Whence, on the tide, you can float down | |
| Through the long salt grass to the wailing sea, | |
| Where the Mayflower drifted off the bar, | 5 |
| Sea-worn and weary, long years ago, | |
| And dared not enter, but sailed away | |
| Till she landed her boats in Plymouth Bay. | |
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| I love to think of old Ipswich town; | |
| Where Whitfield preached in the church on the hill, | 10 |
| Driving out the devil till he leaped down | |
| From the steeple’s top, where they show you still, | |
| Imbedded deep in the solid rock, | |
| The indelible print of his cloven hoof, | |
| And tell you the devil has never shown | 15 |
| Face or hoof since that day in the honest town. | |
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| I love to think of old Ipswich town; | |
| Where they shut up the witches until the day | |
| When they should be roasted so thoroughly brown, | |
| In Salem village, twelve miles away; | 20 |
| They ’ve moved it off for a stable now; | |
| But there are the holes where the stout jail stood, | |
| And at night, they say, that over the holes | |
| You can see the ghost of Goody Coles. | |
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| I love to think of old Ipswich town; | 25 |
| That house to your right, a rod or more, | |
| Where the stern old elm-trees seem to frown | |
| If you peer too hard through the open door, | |
| Sheltered the regicide judges three | |
| When the royal sheriffs were after them, | 30 |
| And a queer old villager once I met, | |
| Who says in the cellar they ’re living yet. | |
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| I love to think of old Ipswich town; | |
| Harry Main—you have heard the tale—lived there: | |
| He blasphemed God, so they put him down | 35 |
| With an iron shovel, at Ipswich Bar; | |
| They chained him there for a thousand years, | |
| As the sea rolls up to shovel it back; | |
| So, when the sea cries, the good wives say | |
| “Harry Main growls at his work to-day.” | 40 |
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| I love to think of old Ipswich town; | |
| There ’s a graveyard up on the old High Street, | |
| Where ten generations are looking down | |
| On the one that is toiling at their feet: | |
| Where the stones stand shoulder to shoulder, like troops | 45 |
| Drawn up to receive a cavalry charge, | |
| And graves have been dug in graves, till the sod | |
| Is the mould of good men gone to God. | |
| |
| I love to think of old Ipswich town, | |
| Old Ipswich town in the East countree, | 50 |
| Whence, on the tide, you can float down | |
| Through the long salt grass to the wailing sea, | |
| And lie all day on the glassy beach, | |
| And learn the lesson the green waves teach, | |
| Till at sunset, from surf and seaweed brown, | 55 |
| You are pulling back to Ipswich town. | |
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