CONTENTS
Reading edition
Page
Nantucket Windows9
Dock Drama10
Ghost House11
Song of Scarlet14
Path Maker (to Maria Mitchell)15
Prophecy Made Going “Down Along”16
Coast Yarn17
Bouncing Bet19
To the “Nineties”21
Structures23
Psychoscience25
Beacon Lights26
Wheel27
Nantucketer in France29
Fishing on Steamboat Wharf31
The Wallace Daisy Field33
Youth and the Old Mill34
Scissors Grinder39
Whispers41
Not the Gift but the Giver43
The Ball44
The Town Clock Gives Advice to The Tourist46
Cup50
To Abram Quary (The Last Indian on Nantucket)51
3 A. M.53
On the Jetty54
Windrow55
The Swimmer56
In the Antique Shop57
The Cardinal Flower58
Wild Bird59
Sabatia Pond61
The Lost Dryad62
Pattran64
Roof Tree65
Evening at Franklin Valley Farm66
Vision69
Lost Beauty70
(An Old Man tells a Story to some Boys)71
From a Window76
Responsible77
Tree Worship79
Another Chance81
Dark Minstrels83
The People of Today to the Clergy of Today84
Protagonist85
Signal Fires86
Martyr87
Ballad of the Thorn Tree88
Balloons on the Beach89
They Pass90
On the Beach91
Saul’s Hills92
Sea Measure111
In An Old Burying Ground112
Christmas Eve on Nantucket114
Song of the Lightships (A Landlubber’s Chantey)116
September Noon118
Main Street by Moonlight119
Psalm of Imagined Hunger121
The Moon Canoe123
Deprecation124
NANTUCKET WINDOWS
Out on the night they glimmer, Island houses, Casements of orange lustre on the moors; Dune-hidden panes where winter sea carouses Shine on the roads that wind past farmhouse doors. The Island windows gleam, and all the sorrow Of human life is lanterned into Dream; The fishers’ huts are splashed, the grey shacks borrow Red from the sun and weltered moonlight gleam. Out on the dark, gold patches on the stable, Light-stippled wharves; ruby and malachite; Sharp, slanting roofs with witchlike peak and gable, Plaqued in warm squares of ruddy window light. Thin blocks of amber in the misty weather, Oblongs of white translucence on the down; Dim, tawny lights beyond pine hidden heather, Clear coastward lights fringing the steepled town. The grey owl flaps across the heaving hollow, The chimneyed house sinks in the commons’ wave; The cottage lights a hundred starlights follow, The Island windows shine ... the road is brave!