I
A brackish1 reach of shoal off Madaket
The sea was still breaking violently and night
Had steamed into our North Atlantic Fleet，
When the drowned sailor clutched the drag-net. Light
Flashed from his matted head and marble feet，
He grappled at the net
With the coiled， hurdling3 muscles of his thighs4：
The corpse5 was bloodless， a botch of reds and whites，
Its open， staring eyes
Were lustreless6 dead-lights
Or cabin-windows on a stranded7 hulk
Heavy with sand. We weight the body， close
Its eyes and heave it seaward whence it came，
Where the heel-headed dogfish barks it nose
On Ahab's void and forehead； and the name
Is blocked in yellow chalk.
Sailors， who pitch this portent8 at the sea
Where dreadnaughts shall confess
Its heel-bent deity9，
When you are powerless
To sand-bag this Atlantic bulwark10， faced
By the earth-shaker， green， unwearied， chaste11
In his steel scales： ask for no Orphean lute12
To pluck life back. The guns of the steeled fleet
Recoil13 and then repeat
The hoarse14 salute15.
II
Whenever winds are moving and their breath
Heaves at the roped-in bulwarks16 of this pier17，
The terns and sea-gulls18 tremble at your death
In these home waters. Sailor， can you hear
The Pequod's sea wings， beating landward， fall
Headlong and break on our Atlantic wall
Off 'Sconset， where the yawing S-boats splash
The bellbuoy， with ballooning spinnakers，
As the entangled19， screeching20 mainsheet clears
The blocks： off Madaket， where lubbers lash2
The heavy surf and throw their long lead squids
For blue-fish？ Sea-gulls blink their heavy lids
Seaward. The winds' wings beat upon the stones，
Cousin， and scream for you and the claws rush
At the sea's throat and wring21 it in the slush
Of this old Quaker graveyard22 where the bones
Cry out in the long night for the hurt beast
Bobbing by Ahab's whaleboats in the East.
III
All you recovered from Poseidon died
With you， my cousin， and the harrowed brine
Is fruitless on the blue beard of the god，
Stretching beyond us to the castles in Spain，
Nantucket's westward23 haven24. To Cape25 Cod26
Guns， cradled on the tide，
Blast the eelgrass about a waterclock
Of bilge and backwash， roil27 the salt and sand
Lashing28 earth's scaffold， rock
Our warships29 in the hand
Of the great God， where time's contrition30 blues31
Whatever it was these Quaker sailors lost
In the mad scramble32 of their lives. They died
When time was open-eyed，
Wooden and childish； only bones abide33
There， in the nowhere， where their boats were tossed
Sky-high， where mariners34 had fabled35 news
Of IS， the whited monster. What it cosplayt
Them is their secret. In the sperm-whale's slick
I see the Quakers drown and hear their cry：
If God himself had not been on our side，
If God himself had not been on our side，
When the Atlantic rose against us， why，
Then it had swallowed us up quick.
IV
This is the end of the whaleroad and the whale
Who spewed Nantucket bones on the thrashed swell36
And stirred the troubled waters to whirlpools
To send the Pequod packing off to hell：
This is the end of them， three-quarters fools，
Snatching at straws to sail
Seaward and seaward on the turntail whale，
Spouting37 out blood and water as it rolls，
Sick as a dog to these Atlantic shoals：
Clamavimus， O depths. Let the sea-gulls wail38
For water， for the deep where the high tide
Mutters to its hurt self， mutters and ebbs39.
Waves wallow in their wash， go out and out，
Leave only the death-rattle of the crabs40，
The beach increasing， its enormous snout
Sucking the ocean's side.
This is the end of running on the waves；
We are poured out like water. Who will dance
The mast-lashed master of Leviathans
Up from this field of Quakers in their unstoned graves？
V
When the whale's viscera go and the roll
Of its corruption41 overruns this world
Beyond tree-swept Nantucket and Wood's Hole
And Martha's Vineyard， Sailor， will your sword
Whistle and fall and sink into the fat？
In the great ash-pit of Jehoshaphat
The bones cry for the blood of the white whale，
The fat flukes arch and whack42 about its ears，
The death-lance churns into the sanctuary43， tears
The gun-blue swingle， heaving like a flail44，
And hacks45 the coiling life out： it works and drags
And rips the sperm-whale's midriff into rags，
Gobbets of blubber spill to wind and weather，
Sailor， and gulls go round the stoven timbers
Where the morning stars sing out together
And thunder shakes the white surf and dismembers
The red flag hammered in the mast-head. Hide，
Our steel， Jonas Messias， in Thy side.
VI
OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM
There once the penitents46 took off their shoes
And then walked barefoot the remaining mile；
And the small trees， a stream and hedgerows file
Slowly along the munching47 English lane，
Like cows to the old shrine48， until you lose
Track of your dragging pain.
The stream flows down under the druid tree，
Shiloah's whirlpools gurgle and make glad
The castle of God. Sailor， you were glad
And whistled Sion by that stream. But see：
Our Lady， too small for her canopy49，
Sits near the altar. There's no comeliness50
at all or charm in that expressionless
Face with its heavy eyelids51. As before，
This face， for centuries a memory，
Non est species， neque decor，
expressionless， expresses God： it goes
Past castled Sion. She knows what God knows，
Not Calvary's Cross nor crib at Bethlehem
Now， and the world shall come to Walsingham.
VII
The empty winds are creaking and the oak
splatters and splatters on the cenotaph，
The boughs52 are trembling and a gaff
Bobs on the untimely stroke
Of the greased wash exploding on a shoal-bell
In the old mouth of the Atlantic. It's well；
Atlantic， you are fouled53 with the blue sailors，
sea-monsters， upward angel， downward fish：
Unmarried and corroding54， spare of flesh
Mart once of supercilious55， wing'd clippers，
Atlantic， where your bell-trap guts56 its spoil
You could cut the brackish winds with a knife
Here in Nantucket， and cast up the time
When the Lord God formed man from the sea's slime
And breathed into his face the breath of life，
And blue-lung'd combers lumbered57 to the kill.
The Lord survives the rainbow of His will.
