Nahant: Poetry by the Sea

NATHAN AMES

NATHAN AMES (1825 - 1865) published Pirates' Glen and Dungeon Rock in 1853, the year Nahant incorporated itself as a town. This epic poem is a Romantic reworking of Lynn’s greatest legend about pirates and buried treasure at Dungeon Rock in the Lynn Woods. To earn a living, Nathan Ames worked as a patent attorney and was granted patent #25076 for “revolving stairs” in 1859. Although his device was never built, Ames is credited as having invented the modern escalator.

Pirates' Glen and Dungeon Rock is an important Nahant poem because it infuses the history and geography of Nahant into Lynn’s greatest legend. As a storyteller, Ames brings the tale to Nahant, where it begins at Swallows’ Cave. There, Ya-Wa-Ta, daughter of the sagamore Na-Na-Pas-He-Met, meets and falls in love with Christopher the sailor, whose fiancَee Arabel has been kidnapped by pirates who eventually bring her to Dungeon Rock. In his History of Lynn, Alonzo Lewis tells the story of pirate treasure entombed within Dungeon Rock by an earthquake in 1658, and Ames presents Lewis’ version in its entirety in the preface to the poem.

Lewis’ History also describes and illustrates the phenomena of the refracted double ship (and sun) often seen on foggy mornings near Nahant. As a poet, Ames makes use of the optical illusion of doubling, as well as the idea of doubling in general. In Canto II of “Pirates' Glen and Dungeon Rock,” the two Nahants, Big and Little, are idealistically described, and then this quality is contrasted to the wickedness of the pirates at Dungeon Rock. In Canto IV of the poem, near its conclusion, Ya-Wa-Ta bids farewell to Christopher and Arabel by Swallow’s Cave amid a swirl of doubling that includes an image of Christopher’s departing ship refracted in the sky.

PIRATES’ GLEN AND DUNGEON ROCK

CANTO II

II.

     The twain Nahants lie side by side,
         In one harmonious union blent ;
     The matchless bridegroom and the bride –
         One soul, one sentiment ;
United still through tempest, change and calm,
They pass from age to age, bound arm in arm.

III.

     Still on that ocean couch sublime,
         Beneath their azure coverlet,
     Soft gliding down the tide of time,
         They sweetly slumber yet.
O, that in such celestial scene as this,
Man’s soul should sink to deeds of wickedness !

. . .

CANTO IV

XVII.

      The boat lies waiting on the shore,
         Her prow impatient to the deep
    “ Fair daughter of the Sagamore,
         Blest are the eyes that weep !”
Low speaks the youth ! “Ya-wa-ta, fare thee well!
This gift from Christopher and Arabel. ”

XVIII.

     “The Indian girl cares not for gold ;”
         Ya-wa-ta said, “ but I would be
      Remembered, when the waves have rolled
         You far beyond the sea !
Know that the child of Na-na-pas-he-met,
If still she live, loves and remembers yet!”

XIX.

     “ Have we no token then for thee,
         Of grateful hearts and sad farewell ? ” –
     “ That wondrous locket might I see,
         Nor wrong thee, Arabel ” –
Sweet friend, thine shall the golden locket be,
Nor dearer gift, though small, couldst ask of me”

XX.

      In tender, silent eloquence,
         They parted by the “ Swallows’ Cave. ”
      The sails, unfurled, are wafting thence
         That Cruiser of the wave.
Ya-wa-ta’s dream of bliss dissolves away ;
Her sun goes down, and darkness ends the day!

XXI.

      Long gazing stood she by the cave ;
       Stood gazing, till her eye grew dim,
      On one who bore upon the wave
       Her heart away with him –
Till lost to view. – When lo ! refracted high
The parting ship rides proudly through the sky !

XXII.

      A sail above , a sail below –
         The thought, the thing, – a double sea
      Like soul and body, onward go !
         Which was reality ?
The one, perchance, sank buried in the wave ;
The other rose – to find a phantom grave !

. . .

from: Pirates' Glen and Dungeon Rock (Lynn, MA: W.W. Kellogg) 1853.