[Autograph Manuscript Unpublished Poem, Signed:] "THE LAY OF THE LONG LOST CABLE.

Two pages, (21.5 x 14.5cm), in ink on Appledore House, - Laighton Brothers, letterhead. About fine. 

Hutton (1843 - 1904) was an American poet, essayist and critic born in New York City on August 8, 1843, and educated privately there. From about 1870 he contributed continually to periodicals and was the dramatic critic of the New York Evening Mail from 1872 to 1874. From 1886 to 1898 he was the literary editor of Harper's Magazine. From 1901, until his death from pneumonia in New York City in 1904, he was a lecturer of English at Princeton.  

Appledore House was an informal island artists' colony that was active in the late 19th to the early 20th century, and home of Celia Laighton Thaxter, whose poetry and gardens drew her literary, artist, and musician friends for decades. Childe Hassam painted Celia in her famed garden. Thaxter died and was buried on the island in 1894, the poet Hutton was a pallbearer at her funeral. This poem was written to Celia's brothers, Oscar (also a poet) and Cedric Laighton, who are directly named in the poem:  "The Lay of the Long Lost Cable / Down under the sea to / Oscar / Through the haunts of / the Codfish & Shark / I've brought you, to lead / the [undecipherable] / From the shore all / electrical spark - /Down under the sea to / Cedric / From the stern of a / boat I was paid, / There I lie, like a long / sea-serpent / And I'll lie there, as / Long as I'm laid. / Laurence Hutton / Aug 19th 1893.