Nantucketer in France
They would take the hill next day—the order, he knew,
And the kind of hell the “taking” would be, he had seen;
So he spent the night awake and the hours flew,
As he pondered on the sort of man he had been,
And wondered what dying and doing it bravely would mean.
“The Eighty-second’s coming along tonight!”
He remembered then. There were men in that regiment knew
His Island home. Men that were going to fight
For the moors he loved and the pines where arbutus grew.
Well—he thought he would like to pass them a word or two.
He thought he would like to see them, to talk of the hill
By Polpis Harbor, the grey little farm roofs slant;
Of the way the sunset flared through the fans of the Mill,
And the rolling moorland hiding the plover and brant,
And the scallopers sailing their boats through Autumnal chill.
He thought he would like to talk of the gilded dome
Of the Unitarian Church, of the cobbled square;
And speak with others sea-faring names of home,
Wondering, “Do they hear of the fighting there
Where Sankaty Light stands guard with its solemn flare?”
So he stood all night, on those dark hours of the earth,
Calling to men slogging by to heroic ends,
AShouting: “Nantucket,” little grey town of his birth;
Palely he stood there, anxious as one who sends
S. O. S. scanning the night for friends.
“Nantucket!” he hailed—but the river of men rolled by,
Every eye set grim towards its Mecca of bloody drench;
No answering Island voice took up his cry
But his own soul answered. He went back to his trench
Resolving how a Nantucket man would die!
Notes
A A true incident.