Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

New England: Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

The Bells of Edgartown

By E. Norman Gunnison (1836?–1880)

(From A Song of Nantucket)

BUT one day more, and, O happy bells!

Your peals shall ring in old Edgartown,

With music that rises and falls and swells,

Over the village and past the down,

Music that tells of two lives made one,

Past Katama and Roaring-Brook,

Out by Gay Head, where, at set of sun,

The lighthouse gleams over hill and nook.

And now for one last sail on the sea,

Another morn they will take their way

To his city home: they must say good by

In a pleasant sail from the peaceful bay:

They near the boat and they spread the sail,

And merrily laugh in their careless glee,

Though the wind is blowing half a gale,

For an old, old friend is the bounding sea.

Beyond the point where no shelter lies,

The wild waves break in a blinding spray,

And the dark squall gathers in angry skies,

And roars and whistles across their way:

Down with your helm! let go the sheet!

Too late! too late! for the boat goes o’er,

And lies on the water a wreck complete,

And miles away is the nearest shore.