Nantucket windows

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!