Nahant: Poetry by the Sea

JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD

JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD (1796 - 1828) was born in New London Connecticut, and educated at Yale. He abandoned his study of law in 1822 to become editor of the weekly Hartford newspaper, The Connecticut Mirror. He published his first volume of poems in 1825. Tuberculosis forced him to resign his editorial position in 1827, and finally caused his death in New London, at his father’s home. “Sonnet to the Sea Serpent,” the most popular poem about the legendary creature, ends with a humorous dig at exaggerated reports of its sighting near Nahant. Attempts to more accurately describe the sea serpent at Nahant appear in J.P. O’Neill’s The Great New England Sea Serpent (Camden, ME: Down East Books 1999).

SONNET TO THE SEA-SERPENT

“Hugest that swims the ocean stream.”
WELTER upon the waters, mighty one–
And stretch thee in the ocean’s trough of brine;
Turn thy wet scales up to the wind and sun,
And toss the billow from thy flashing fin;
Heave thy deep breathings to the ocean’s din,
And bound upon its ridges in thy pride:
Or dive down to its lowest depths, and in
The caverns where its unknown monsters hide,
Measure thy length beneath the gulf-stream’s tide–
Or rest thee on that naval of the sea
Where, floating on the Maelstrom, abide
The krakens sheltering under Norway’s lee;
But go not to Nahant, lest men should swear,
You are a great deal bigger than you are.

from: Clarence Hobbs Lynn and Surroundings (Lynn, MA: Lewis and Winship) 1886.