A Newport Poem ~ Cliff Walk

~Cliff Walk~

Aquidneck Island, in Rhode Island's Ocean State, hosts a trail beside the sea

Where on Newport's legendary cliff walk fog-shrouded mansions rise in mystery. 

Above the Atlantic's pounding rage one walks past treasures from another age

To glimpse grand palaces on a fabled path along a precipice above the ocean's wrath,

As ghostly mists from another time enshroud the visitor with the sublime,

To view gray sentinels that echo times of lore from the Gilded Age, that lavish life before, 

When Newport was but America's social queen, of an opulence our nation has seldom seen. 

Many mansions there, yet, now do last, those triumphant reminders of the past, 

Where, by moonlight, lofty chimneys yet silhouette the sky above cliffs and rocks over the ocean's haunting sigh.

Above the gray cliffs, those do yet dwell, who recall legends 
of the cliff walk's many tales to tell

Of gossip and social scandals and tragedies of the sea, of success and failure during Newport's proud history.

-Alfred Richardson Simson