NANTUCKET
WINDOWS

BY

Edwina Stanton Babcock
Author of
“Greek Wayfarers,” “The Flying Parliament,” etc.

The Inquirer and Mirror Press
Nantucket Island, Mass.
1924

Copyright, 1924, Edwina Stanton Babcock

TO ANNIE BARKER FOLGER

By whose fireside an Off-Islander first learned to love the charm and grace of Nantucket hospitality

Appreciation is expressed to The National Magazine,
the Nantucket Historical Society Bulletin, the
Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, and
other publications, for permission
to reprint some of these verses

	Page
Nantucket Windows	9
Dock Drama	10
Ghost House	11
Song of Scarlet	14
Path Maker (to Maria Mitchell)	15
Prophecy Made Going “Down Along”	16
Coast Yarn	17
Bouncing Bet	19
To the “Nineties”	21
Structures	23
Psychoscience	25
Beacon Lights	26
Wheel	27
Nantucketer in France	29
Fishing on Steamboat Wharf	31
The Wallace Daisy Field	33
Youth and the Old Mill	34
Scissors Grinder	39
Whispers	41
Not the Gift but the Giver	43
The Ball	44
The Town Clock Gives Advice to The Tourist	46
Cup	50
To Abram Quary (The Last Indian on Nantucket)	51
3 A. M.	53
On the Jetty	54
Windrow	55
The Swimmer	56
In the Antique Shop	57
The Cardinal Flower	58
Wild Bird	59
Sabatia Pond	61
The Lost Dryad	62
Pattran	64
Roof Tree	65
Evening at Franklin Valley Farm	66
Vision	69
Lost Beauty	70
(An Old Man tells a Story to some Boys)	71
From a Window	76
Responsible	77
Tree Worship	79
Another Chance	81
Dark Minstrels	83
The People of Today to the Clergy of Today	84
Protagonist	85
Signal Fires	86
Martyr	87
Ballad of the Thorn Tree	88
Balloons on the Beach	89
They Pass	90
On the Beach	91
Saul’s Hills	92
Sea Measure	111
In An Old Burying Ground	112
Christmas Eve on Nantucket	114
Song of the Lightships (A Landlubber’s Chantey)	116
September Noon	118
Main Street by Moonlight	119
Psalm of Imagined Hunger	121
The Moon Canoe	123
Deprecation	124

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!

DOCK DRAMA

Limp in his chair atilt against a shack
An old man broods o’er newspaper and smoke
Where shingle-quilted pent roofs back to back
Checker from grey of ash to black of coke;
Dim squares of window, opal-paned, baroque,
Waver on water, pearling it to deep
Weedwafted droop of shifting shadow cloak
Where swirls of silver imagery sweep.
Slow ribboning to the surface serpent rings
Of mast reflections quiver into grey
Upon the incoming tide that softly brings
One high-peaked sail along the buoyant way
Where questing water tentatively steals
Fingering mossy spiles and undulant keels.

The steam boat dock’s a stage where nightly speak
The actors in some ribald skit of Trade
Here serried barrels screen a jester’s freak
And piles of trunks made pirate ambuscade.
Red lanterns slackly swung and lights of jade
Accent accordions’ pert canzonette;
Or furry trawls along the string piece laid
Trip oil-skinned fisherman’s hulking silhouette.
A massive barge like enigmatic tomb
Toward a sea-scented land of dark drifts down;
Dim on the East the sandy headlands loom
Till dawn rings up green trees and steepled town.
Then like applause in broken scattering sound
The motor boats speed to the clamming ground.

GHOST HOUSE.

I had always felt contented about that ghost,
There in her vine-shrouded house aside of the road;
I knew that the rag-stuffed panes were her special boast,
That she liked the tumble-down chimney of her abode;
She liked that old hat that hung in the tree in the lane,
And the scarecrow leaves that dribbled around in the rain;
The ivy that muffled the sills, a ghost would adore,
And she revelled in cobwebs the twisted staircase wore.

“The dear, mild thing,” I thought, “she’s the only one
In this glittering, piece-work world that can run a home;
No wonder the birds to her leaf-hung windows come,
No wonder the black mole tunnels the garden loam;
And there is revelry under her knotted boards
Where wild kittens hide and the grey squirrels rattle their hoards.”

But some eager, figeting, worldlings came one day,
Moved into the house on a heavenly morning in May;
Of course the ghost could do nothing but move away....
Lord, the cutting and hammering, planing and scrubbing and suds,
Lord, the paint and the polish, the grates and the curtains and duds!

The new-new beds, the cleanness and trimness and all,
I looked for the ghost in the mirror that shone in the hall;
I looked for her round the curve of the varnished stair,
I searched and called for her, wistfully, everywhere....

“And what will you do, dear ghost,” was my whispered cry,
“And where will you live your shadowed revery?
Where do ghosts go when no longer they have a home,
Do they pile their effects in a van and begin to roam?
Shall you take to a haystack or sleep in the church’s dome?”

Whether she heard me and thought it could not be true,
Or guessed that she might not trust me, the ghost made no ado;
Though the pale grey thing may really have cared that I knew,
At all events, she moved ... and her shadowy store
Of belongings exists for the world no more....

That house by the road, more correct, I think, than most,
Has lost its chief charm.... It no longer has a ghost.

SONG OF SCARLET.

The black-alder berries are thick this year,
(It’s going to be cold);
Their scarlet trinkets, their necklaces bold
Hang on the shivering wind-swept year,
(It’s going to be cold).

Now, the Commons are bare and the leaves whirl around,
(It’s going to be cold);
Like little brown sparrows flicked over the around
(It’s going to be cold);
But the black alder-berries like rubies embeaded
String out on the heath where the milkweed has seeded,
(It’s going to be cold).

Now the wind feels the blind and the roads look severe,
(It’s going to be cold);
And the locust tree’s horned pods rattle and shake,
And the small bony branches grow brittle and break ...
But vitality lingers in reindeer moss,
And near the holm holly the thorn-berries toss,
The bright alder-berries gleam saucy and bold,
Pile up your wood-fires—who cares if it’s cold?

PATHMAKER

(To Maria Mitchell)

In those eyes, dark as pools, the morning star
Must have lain long; on that calm breadth of brow
Must have been set some nobleness of vow
To distance and to space and all things far.
A little narrow street enshrines her now,
But through the world her planet pathways are
Blazed with her name; the constellate gates un-pbar
To those who, following, her star-cairns know.
Woman, who walked with Science to mark the lights
Along dark ways, thy luminous steps are dim;
Rapt on ethereal roads of satellites:
Art gazing still through space beyond the brim
Of sparkling nebula meadows to the nights
Of some New Radiance o’er still farther Rim?

PROPHECY MADE GOING “DOWN ALONG.”

Don’t tell, but I think there’s a miracle today;
The Old North Church is full of Western light,
And the bush near by is afire; very bright
Shine the windows in the tower, for the last half hour
Some starlings have ranged there whistling and calling,
The barometer is falling,
It’s Underground Moon this week, you know;
(Don’t tell anybody I said so,
But I think there’s a miracle today.)
Somewhere on the Island something’s going to happen;
Don’t ask me, I don’t know anything about it.
Whatever I say I’d just as lief shout it,
(But there’s going to be a miracle today!)
If there’s any pass at all a-going your way,
Better say
(There’s going to be a miracle today.)
Don’t tell them who said so—they wouldn’t like it, hey?
(But there’s going to be a miracle today!)
I know it for sure, for I’ve stood for one hour
Watching those starlings in the North Church Tower.
So if you want a gam,
It’s sure I am
That there’s going to be a miracle today.
So that’s the drift,
Though maybe they’ll be miffed—
“He hasn’t got the run of it,” they’ll say,
But—there’s going to be a miracle today!

COAST YARN.

Skies pebbled with stars,
Sea, breathing like a sleeping animal,
Wind nuzzling wet shagginess of moors.
The coarse bright strains of an accordion,
Perversely stretched and shrunken
Against a wall of dark.

Brown faces, high cheekbones,
Polyglot sea-words;
A cold, dark swiftness;
Hardness of diligence
For shrewd, tight-fisted gain.

The Cranberry Pickers dance gravely
In squalid shacks on the moors,
And the greasy bottles pass
From old lips to young;
Rough doorways blurt out light;
White teeth, dark eyes shine.

There is chattering wharf talk
And garbled dock yard French;
Clamdiggers, Scallopers,
Fondle their dirty rolls
Of smoky dollar bills
And stride in booted ease.

Out of the moorland night
She, saucily, slips in,
Thistledown on her hair;
Little, slim, ear-ringed, scarlet-bloused,
Her feet and impertinent breasts four mischievous mongrel words
In a universal language;
Her mouth gleams like berries,
Swamp-light in her eyes—

Someone clasps, someone curses—
Then screams; a knife....
The sea, like an animal panting;
The sands, scared and white,
Broken barrels of cranberries
Strewn like unholy rosaries;
A man, stripped and bleeding,
Thrown overboard at midnight
Where the tide runs strong.

On a small brown neck
A long gold chain
To match new earrings!

BOUNCING BET.

Sauntering narrow lanes
Led by the weather vanes
See beneath narrow panes
Nantucket gardens
Where little fruit trees lean
On old walls grey and green
Dappling ivies screen
Nantucket Gardens.

All that is best and fair
Like old scent lingers there
Shrubs, herbs and ramblers share
The sweet disorders;
Tall tapered holly hocks
Foxglove and purple phlox
Demure mints, frilly stocks
Spike the box borders.

Yet—past the rose hung doors
Called by the tangled moors
Bouncing Bet left them.
On new strange roadways bound
Was the career she found
When she bereft them.

Ragged pink wilful thing—
You had to have your fling
With weeds to roister
You could not breathe the air
Of mignonette, nor care
For sweet peas cloister.

Only, these have a name
Theirs is the garden fame
They are traditioned;
Out on the dusty ways
Bouncing Bet weary strays
Quite ill-conditioned.

Yet I have heard the cry
Go up from passers-by,
Young, therefore tragic
Escaped—the little word
To them is not absurd
They know its magic!

Therefore dear Bouncing Bet
You may have honor yet
Yours may be winning
But in your saucy pride
Though you would not abide
Gates, gardens, walls, beside;
Were your beginning.

TO THE NINETIES.

On Sundays when the church bells ring
Their island-towered summoning
I see the Nineties go
Gravely around the narrow cornered way
As they have gone for many a changing day
Steady and slow.

At twilight before window lights are lit
I see them, whitehaired, backward musing, sit
Beside their narrow pane
And then to me who wander through the streets
The new life with their olden living meets
And they are young again.

And always, by the great hearth’s roaring fire
Or in the spring-lit street, or by the door
I hear their sober speech, with them live o’er
Old days, see the stiff backs that bow
Under the life so hard upon them now;
Yet frugal, busy, gathering up the Past
For memories that serve them to the last
Binding their faggots slow
Of what they know.

If e’er the turbulent world can settle down to live
If e’er we learn to suffer and forgive
To work hard with few pleasures and great faiths
We shall invoke these tottering, smiling wraiths
And we shall smile and whisper softly “true
It was the Old, who knew.”

Note. One year when summer residents returned to Nantucket they were informed that there had been “a great falling off among the nineties” that winter; and it was noted that much vivacity and charm had gone from the island social gatherings.

STRUCTURES.

They have taken the old houses,
Lovingly they have taken them;
Bound up their wounds, bandaged their aching sides,
Made them soft friendships of pretty paint
And kindnesses of mortar....
They’ve made little paths this way
And little paths that way
And cosseted and crooned and coaxed and cared,
Till the old houses, the very old houses,
Stand up quite proudly with a dear and ancient pride.
All day long—all day long they meditate,
In spite of all the pretty paints;
In spite of all their mended ceilings, do they meditate
On the old houses, the very old houses
That they were when they died.

And so I suppose with the old ideas,
Rickety old ideas,
Heart-broken shapes that stand in field and sky;
Cleverly we re-paint them,
Cleverly decorate and give them quite new hinges,
And open them up and brick them in and hold them,
All that is good in them, away from ruin....

Yet, all year long the old ideas are walking,
All year long the old ideas are talking,
Talking through our every act and glance,
In spite of all our efforts to be new and useful,
In spite of all our efforts, we go acting
By the rickety old ideas,
The shapeless, bulged ideas,
The mildewed, damp ideas
That have died.

PSYCHOSCIENCE.

He, who is far from home, knows when the snow
Gives way before the sunny urge of Spring,
When the first ecstasies of bluebirds go
Through blossomed loops and boughs bee-murmuring,
When brier roses starrily compose
Upon the scented spray—he, homesick, knows.

He, that is far from love, knows when the face
That knew his face is raised to summer stars;
He, like that other, hungers in his place,
And, like that other, grips his prison bars—
And when that upturned face can no more smile,
He knows; and whispers comfort, mile on mile.

He, who feels far from God, knows when the Word
Comes light upon a golden-shadowed hill;
On his dim path the radiance has stirred,
Deep in a dream he shrines his knowledge; still
Keeping his thorny ways, intent he goes,
Knowing the Hidden that infinitely knows!

BEACON LIGHTS.

When I am cowardly, sick of the fight,
Dumb for the right word, nerveless for deeds that dare,
Blaze up in my heart, square little Brant Point Light;
Light me a broad path starred with a burnished flare!

If I am tossing on a sea of doubt,
And have no harbor, no fair shore to know,
Sankaty, like an angel, spread your great wings out,
Headland and coastward light, give me your glow!

If I am lost and waves go over me,
Tossing, engulfing hollows o’er my head;
Thou, Great Point Light, will surely cover me,
And by thy strong white clue I shall be led!

When I am caught in foam of treacherous beach,
And all the darkness presses like a wall,
Blaze, Island lights, beyond the Island reach;
Beacon me to the Utmost Light of all!

WHEEL.

The growing’s finished. Down the garden ways
The Gardener comes, slow-trundling his barrow.

He brings a load of curious loamy mulch,
Brings tools that cut and stab the earth,
That lop the boughs from off full-blooded trees.

Under the falling leaves the Gardener stands,
Unshocked to see the tulip and the rose,
Red haw, brown seed-pod, lily staff and leaf—
All lying dead, extinguished, passionless.

The Gardener smiles to see the adventurous bee
Lying cold-killed under a broken stalk;
Smiles on a battered moth with frosted wing.

He spreads black clods of compost on the beds,
Sifts ashes all around the roots of trees,
Lops off, cuts back, prunes, digs away and kills.

Knowing how, out of the ruin and wreck,
Pure glowing things will come; new winged forms,
Trees that shall say new things to listening souls.

O Unseen Gardener of the World-tree, boughs
Ripe with strange star-fruit dropping in the fields
Of vast Space-gardens—give, Thou, me to learn
In simple ways, how, after this life’s dream
I may accept new growth, even to loss
Of this life-consciousness—to help Thy plan!

Become, for Thee, a dried-up flower cup,
A butterfly unwingéd, broken-plumed,
Even a blinded, helpless, light-killed moth—
So that I nourish forth new growing things
In the star branchéd garden of deep Time!

Grant that this brain, that dares to dream of Thee,
As Father, Friend—taught of the sentient flowers,
Shall dream—dream on to some far endless end!

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Nantucket windows