The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket fleet of warships, of a sailor's corpse at sea on the North Atlantic "off Madaket" (which is a harbor on Nantucket Island) and its reburial with military honours, ending with the gun salute. It also makes the first reference to Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, specifically to the fictional character Captain Ahab. Throughout the poem, Lowell uses the fate of the fictional Pequod, the whaling ship in Moby Dick, as a metaphor for the fate of Warren Winslow and his fellow Navy crewmen of the "Turner" during World War II. Section II introduces the Quaker graveyard in Nantucket and Lowell's cousin, and
Anti-whaling activists aboard the "Rainbow Warrior" confronted the whaling ship, "Ibsa III", again deploying zodiacs to maneuver between the whalers and the whales. After a few hours of interference, warships from the Spanish Navy arrived to pursue and eventually board the Greenpeace ship. The activist crew was formally arrested and the "Rainbow Warrior" confiscated despite claims that the incident took place in international waters. Charged in a military court, the captain of the "Rainbow Warrior", Jonathan Castle, refused to pay the $142,000 fine (1,200,000 pesetas) and the ship was held in the military harbor O Ferrol. Spanish authorities disabled the activist