Noises in a summer night

“What rattles in the dark? The blinds at Brewster?

I am a boy then, sleeping by the sea,

Unless that clank and chittering proceed

From a bent fan-blade somewhere in the room….’’

— From “In Limbo,’’ by Richard Wilbur (1921-2017), New England-based poet, literary translator and teacher. He served as U.S. poet laureate. The “Brewster’’ here is the town on the Cape Cod Bay side of the peninsula. It’s best known now as a summer-home center.

Linnell Landing Beach, in Brewster.

Brewster was named for Elder William Brewster, the first religious leader of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony. The town grew around Stony Brook, where the first water-powered grist and woolen mill in the country was founded in the late 17th Century — an early sign of New Englanders’ world-famous inventiveness. Rich sea captains built many of the town’s stately homes, some of which are now inns and bed-and-breakfasts. The most notable of these are the Brewster Historical Society’s Captain Elijah Cobb House, on Lower Road, the Crosby Mansion, on Crosby Lane by Crosby Beach, and the Captain Freeman Inn on Breakwater Road.

Stony Brook mill.