The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket Death Quotes

Lowell might describe the sailor as "clutching," but it's really the net that is clutching him. Lest we get our hopes up that he may still be alive and kicking, Lowell describes his skin as "marble." You don't get much less alive than stone.

This is pretty graphic stuff. The sailor is now just called the "corpse" and "it," and physically he's just a puppet being thrown around. It's strange that throughout the poem Lowell addresses him as if he is still there. With this image, though, we're meant to know very clearly that he's gone.

Even the whaling industry, which once thrived, dies. Lowell compares it to the tide going out, leaving the beach bare. Ultimately, everything meets its end. Yay?

Though he's asking who will make Ahab rise from the dead, he's already answered the question: no one. In the poem, you can't cheat death, or the sea. Both are final. Sorry, Ahab.

Here, the butchering of the whale is likened to the destruction of a sanctuary. When man kills a creature, he destroys something scared, says Lowell. Not good.