THE BRIDGE

The bridge over the Erie Canal on Canandaigua Road (built in 1912) is being removed this week.  After a century of connecting local drivers with Route 31 and  Macedon Center Road, it's time for a new bridge to be in place to transport us safely over the canal waters.

Is it coincidence that just a week or so ago we found a poem among some Bullis documents that had recently been forwarded to the Bullis Room? And that it's a copy of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Bridge?  The cursive looks similar to Nettie Bullis's handwriting, so we're also wondering if she's the scribe. If she was the copyist, was she thinking of the bridge within sight of her family home on Canandaigua Road? (We like to "suppose" so.)

Anyway, here's the first half of the poem. We'll post the remainder next week.

The Bridge

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I stood on the bridge at midnight,

As the clocks were striking the hour,

And the moon rose o'er the city, 

Behind the dark church-tower.

I saw her bright reflection,

In the waters under me,

Like a golden goblet falling,

And sinking into the sea.

And far in the hazy distance

Of that lonely night in June,

The blaze of the flaming furnace

Gleamed redder than the moon.

Among the long black rafters

The wavering shadows lay,

And the current that came from the ocean

Seemed to lift and bear them away.

As, sweeping and eddying through them,

Rose the belated tide,

And streaming into the moonlight,

The seaweed floated wide.

And like these waters rushing

Among the wooden piers,

A flood of thoughts came o'er me

And filled my eyes with tears.