Part 5

But we (who know) speak in no idle way, We hold no rendezvous, nor name an hour; We make no promise when to go or stay, We do not plan to gather fruit or flower; We only tell the Image deep within Our struggling beings: “Beyond all abodes And all the challenging, whether we lose or win, Spirit, we two shall take the Island roads!”

SEA-MEASURE.

All night long the even roll of sea Rhythmic and slow On silence to whose inner mystery No man may go.

Socrates, Plato, Christ must all have heard Walking the lonely beach Listening for that hidden inner word That they might teach.

All lonely men the centuries send down To master human things Must have been strengthened by this monotone To evener ponderings.

Quietly feeling what we feel tonight That there is hidden bond Between our Deepselves and some infinite Deepness beyond.

IN AN OLD BURYING GROUND.

This is strange heraldry The graveyard paints For him who best perceives Its curious feints. Under its leaning stones Sailors and parson men Titles and beggarmen Maidens and crones, Mingle their bones.

They laugh at dreams we weave Of equality Under the sun Yet here it’s done! Under the frail grass-spear All these are equal here None lie alone.

Greek name and Bible name Pagan and prude; Under the grass Not any class. Fine old aristocrat-- Right near his trimkept plat The cobbler’s lass!

Also I notice near Sun shining full and clear Violets as blue. The man who used to swear Sleeping quite calmly there Where Quakers do.

Dreamer and prig and crank; Humble and full of swank Level they rank To us they all seem just Handfuls of human dust Even and blank.

And this I’ve come to hold One may be quite an old Aristocrat; But when one comes to die Things are Democracy And that is that!

CHRISTMAS EVE ON NANTUCKET.

For half an hour tonight we wander Through the streets, And see the Christmas trees against the lighted pane; And catch child voices raised in glee and hear Street singers chanting carols loud and free Then a bell tone, and then the far-off sea.

We turn a corner and we pass a house Whence strains of music come, “Minuit Chrétians--” They will be singing that in Paris tonight! From a side gate a scarlet figure booted, slips with bells Jingling; some amateur Santa Claus late for festival.

Here a bright voiced smiling woman hurries along To the dim lighted church, bearing a hemlock wreath Made by her hands. Upon white panelled doors hang other wreaths Woven from ground pine near Wannacomet Pond. And scarlet berries blaze In window boxes bare of summer flowers But now made Holiday.

Another narrow street, and here the candles shine Ranging along the pane in a white row, Lovely immaculates of memory. And in another window a small figure A dainty mandarin poised in Chinoise grace Beneath some mistletoe! And in one window more an old white head Is bent over some early coming gift Brought by the letter carrier From children far away. Late! Yet a few steps further, where the narrow lane Turns to the moors. There in December skies Tender with Christmas memories of years on years, Hangs in its winter white, The Evening Star!

SONG OF THE LIGHTSHIPS.

(Landlubber’s Chantey.)

When the wolves of wind press hard On the wild seas snarling pack, And the waves bite the shore And the shore bites back; When the night’s like a cave Full of black things howling And the hurricanes rave With the whistle buoy yowling.

There’s a rusty trusty boat that never makes a port, There’s a scrubby bold boat that never finds a lee, The blunt little lightship, The iron clad lightship, The weather-wise lightship, Anchored out at sea!

When the storms signal’s set, Great Point stuck with masts, And the range lights blur Through the wicked black blasts When the extra anchors drag And the bell buoy clangs And the jetty rocks swirl Under tide rips fangs.

There’s one little boat that never makes a port There’s one tidy ship that never seeks a lee The blunt little lightship The staunch, able lightship The game, snubby lightship Anchored out at sea.

When the night’s very still And the moon rides high, There’s one strange craft Gives a hail and stands by. Though the forms on her decks Have a look of the dead Still they warn of a wreck Or a shoal dead ahead.

_It’s the winter-lost Lightship that never found a lee It’s the tide-driven Lightship that never made a port It’s the silent-crewed Lightship, the speechless brave Lightship The ice-covered Lightship Sunk at sea._

Now when home fires blaze And the storm is shut out, And the wind and its ways Are sea-yarned about; When the good glass is lifted In the good pipe smoke And the good talk has drifted From the well worn joke....

Toast the one little boat that never makes port! Sing of the craft that never hunts a lee-- Drink to the lightships, the lonely crews of lightships The lunging, plunging lightships Anchored out at sea!

SEPTEMBER NOON.

Upon the warm brick walls the patterns come, Dim moving likenesses of pensive leaves; The swallows twitter round the ivied eaves Late bees in perilous petunias hum; On the moors, amber grape and bloomy plum, But here in trim back-yards the apple’s face Twinkling with dahlias in some latticed place.

The stranger’s foot has gone and all the world Has settled down to Island ways of peace, Where the clouds mid-summer caravans cease Soundlessness on the hills is silver-furled! Now all faint scents and spice of full increase! The scarlet pepper pendant on its bush And late corn leaning on the farmland hush.

Slow wagons trundle with the sea-grass haul, The crickets, palaced in the golden rod Begin their strumming; the horse-chestnuts fall And morning glories on the trellis nod; Marigold’s velvet turns to pungent pod. A sea of azure girds the shores around; The tawny silence mellows till the deep Steamboat whistle’s sombre-throated sound Wakens the isle from Indian Summer’s sleep Then all is bustle and the city’s stir Once more has come upon the Islander.

MAIN STREET BY MOONLIGHT.

The old church clock strikes one, and down the row Of ancient houses where the moonlight floods, The black tree branches move like wands that throw A net of woven loopings flecked with buds. The night is still, a silver quiet now Transforms the plain old homes whose ancient mood Returns; through panelled doorways come and go Figures soft shod, in prim calash and hood; Here by a lilac bush the little gate Supports two figures of sweetheart and beau Here by a hedge two others hesitate Then join the shadowy thronging too and fro.

Do you believe that in those rooms upstair The newer generation dreams again Back to the lives of all these women and men Setting them free to haunt the pavements here? That youngsters sleeping see sails homeward fare, Ships laden with treasure and salt romance; The Quakers’ broad brim; Puritans askance? That such bold dreaming sets these spirits free On this deserted street in moonlit beam “Coming alive,” though coming soberly And looking on us as figures in =their= dream?

Hush, with what proud simplicity these figures move And live again austerities of grace Who used their lives so guardedly--this glove The homespun petticoat! this barbe of lace! Boots and prunellas on the brick path pace; Fair tinted skin, clear eye and honored name Come through the panelled doors or garden place. The scholars’ reserve, the solid merchants’ fame The Friends, the Captains, blooded knight and dame, Who to old English gentry backward trace.

So through the cobbled streets they silently press On very gentle errands of their own And make no plea, and no proud tale confess Nor look aghast at their once simple town Yet do they smile, permitting us to guess That they prefer their own to our renown....

Was that the clock just struck ... the street is clear The moon rides high, there are no figures here.... Someone stopped dreaming in this street, my dear!

PSALM OF IMAGINED HUNGER.

If I were starving in Nantucket I would first Go down to the beach and dig for quahaugs; Or some scallops. Or drop overboard a neat little lobster car, Or row to a place where there are wild oysters; Then I would hang around the docks at five o’clock When the fishermen come in, And perhaps get an extra plaicefish Or some shark or black fish, (Though I shouldn’t like to eat horseshoe crab or squid) That failing, I would go out on the moors and snare a pheasant; I would catch a rabbit and though I wouldn’t know how to cook it, an owl. To eat crow, I have heard is not judicious--but how about marsh-hawk? If it were August I would get Irish moss out of the sea, And flavor it with cranberries. I would then go crabbing near Our Island Home; If it were July I should live in the blueberry patches And find black berries, (you know where!) And get strawberries in the old cemetery. I would go mushrooming (very prudently) in fields near Thorn Lots. I would go beach plumming (very early) on the State Road I would get in touch with grape vines near Wauwinet And with hazel nuts near ’Sconset And dig for swamp root out near Madaket. Elder berry would be a last resort! I would hang over the fences of a certain yard in Hussey Street To see if grapes and pears would come to me. Or I would interrupt tea-parties on Pleasant Street Boldly walking in and asking for apples. Of course I would weed the potato patch of anyone that asked me to For two potatoes. I would help with the melons and do what I could for corn and pumpkins; Peaches and cherries I would pluck on shares But if all these things failed I would go to a little house, Where they always know what I mean And ask for food!

THE MOON-CANOE.

Where evening tides creep dark and blue, I launch my little moon-canoe.

I leave the planet harbor light, And lay my course along the Night.

I paddle down the Milky Way Where phospher sky weeds gleam and spray,

And pluck what starry branches grow Along its winding overflow.

I swing my shallop out mid dream Where tides of summer evening stream;

And carried on this sound so wide, Still on and on and on I glide,

Harking, along the Western bar The bell buoy of a swinging star.

My meteor anchor will, I ween, Hold in this dark of depth unseen;

The dew, my silver lead and line Doth sound me shallows of star shine;

And now and then I reef the veil Of fog that serves me for a sail.

When, bold, I make the Western lee, Old pilot shadows signal me;

And tacking windward come a fleet Of clouds, with ghostly spar and sheet.

I follow them and disembark, And moor my boat beyond the Dark.

DEPRECATION.

While mending nets I made the songs I knew, Hummed them for sake of humming, not for singing; But as I crooned, the bell-buoy crooned them too, The blacksmith had them on his anvil ringing, And the gulls carried them on clearcut winging....

Yet, if their ragged form the world regrets, Do you explain.... “But, she was mending nets!”