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Poem: "Nantucket Girl's Song"
Jan. 8th, 2008 10:56 pmEliza Brock
Nantucket Girl's Song
Then I'll haste to wed a sailor, and send him off to sea,
For a life of independence, is the pleasant life for me.
But every now and then I shall like to see his face,
For it always seems to me to beam with manly grace,
With his brow so nobly open, and his dark and kindly eye,
Oh my heart beats fondly towards him whenever he is nigh.
But when he says "Goodbye my love, I'm off across the sea,"
First I cry for his departure, then laugh because I'm free.
Picked up my brother's copy of In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Wahleship Essex, and finding the first 20 pages to be well-written and interesting. I don't usually go in for non-fiction, but the cover caught my eye, and my brother was intending to lock it away in the attic anyway. I practically rescued it. It opens with general history of the island of Nantucket, MA---which I'd never heard about before---the whaling capital of the world for the 18 and 19th centuries.
I fell in love with this odd little verse, written by one of the local women to describe the 3-years-away, 3-months-home marriage cycle of whale hunters, and how the women of the community, in the absence of the men, adapted to the lifestyle of being the primary governing forces of the town.
Nantucket Girl's Song
Then I'll haste to wed a sailor, and send him off to sea,
For a life of independence, is the pleasant life for me.
But every now and then I shall like to see his face,
For it always seems to me to beam with manly grace,
With his brow so nobly open, and his dark and kindly eye,
Oh my heart beats fondly towards him whenever he is nigh.
But when he says "Goodbye my love, I'm off across the sea,"
First I cry for his departure, then laugh because I'm free.
Picked up my brother's copy of In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Wahleship Essex, and finding the first 20 pages to be well-written and interesting. I don't usually go in for non-fiction, but the cover caught my eye, and my brother was intending to lock it away in the attic anyway. I practically rescued it. It opens with general history of the island of Nantucket, MA---which I'd never heard about before---the whaling capital of the world for the 18 and 19th centuries.
I fell in love with this odd little verse, written by one of the local women to describe the 3-years-away, 3-months-home marriage cycle of whale hunters, and how the women of the community, in the absence of the men, adapted to the lifestyle of being the primary governing forces of the town.
