76
PARTISAN REVIEW
PASSAGES FROM THE QUAKER GRAVEYARD
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 westward haven. To Cape Cod
Guns, cradled on the tide,
Blast the eelgrass about a waterclock
Of bilge and backwash, roil the salt and sand
Lashing earth's scaffold, rock
Our warships in the hand
Of the great God, where time's contrition blues
Whatever it was these Quaker sailors lost
In the mad scramble of their lives. They died
When time was open-eyed,
Wooden and childish; only bones abide
There, in the nowhere, where their boats were tossed
Sky-high, where mariners had fabled news
Of Is, the swashing castle. What it cost
Them is their secret. I have heard 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."
And the the waters overwhelmed us, slick
And salt went over our souls,
The water:> of the proud went over our souls.
v
When you were children, the northeasters ripped
The rotten canvas from your model-boats
And Bremen dinghys in Nantucket. What
You were was camouflaged in spangled coats,
But the blank salvos of Versailles had tripped
You in their bluster and your teeth were cut
On a barbaric broom-pole's butt,
Churning into your thin
