A Nantucket Retirement

THE LAST SCENE

13

Dr. A. Stuart Pitt is a Professor in the Department of English, at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and has contributed a number of articles for Historic Nantucket. He has prepared a new edition of Joseph C. Hart's Miriam Coffin, with the added title, "A SemiRomance of the Sea: Miriam Coffin as Precursor of Moby -Die k".

A NANTUCKET RETIREMENT

To hear the ferries whistle as they come and go No longer is for me a signal To begin work, or to cease, To get a meal, greet an arrival, Or even pause to rest.

Instead I hear the whistles as the punctuation of the day, Which, like the sonorous striking of the hour, Informs me still, but gently now, That time is passing and there's this and that to do— But the choice is mine, and there is much from which to choose.

And still, I feel compelled to use that time Up to the hilt, rejoicing That the choice is mine! For how long Lies in God's hands, but in mine Rests the responsibility.

Eleanor Phinney Nantucket, Mass. From Modern Maturity August-Sept., 1977