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
Moby-Dick (opera) weathered the storm. From afar, Gardiner, captain of the "Rachel", another whaling vessel, pleads for help to search for his 12-year-old son who was lost in the storm. Ahab refuses. Pip replies to Gardiner of the "Pequod"'s own lost boy, then cuts himself. Ahab's clothes are stained with Pip's blood. Ahab orders the ship to sail on, leaving Gardiner behind. Ahab ponders the heartless God who devastates so many lives and baptizes his new harpoon with Pip's blood. Below deck, Greenhorn sees Queequeg's newly built coffin and contemplates the state of the ship and crew. On deck, Ahab and Starbuck