Section 2 Summary

Lines 27-28

Whenever winds are moving and their breath
Heaves at the roped-in bulwarks of this pier, 

• New section, new setting: now we are on a pier, looking out over the water, protected from the waves (we hope).
• Lowell personifies the wind by giving it breath. Here's yet another example of making a force of nature into something living.
• (Let's just hope the wind isn't as angry as the sea.)

Lines 29-32

The terns and sea-gulls tremble at your death
In these home waters. Sailor, can you hear
The Pequod's sea wings, beating landward, fall
Headlong and break on our Atlantic wall 

• Notice, in this second section, that the rhyme scheme has changed. Keep your eyes on the end rhyme in each line and the meter, and refer back to the "Form and Meter" section for more a deeper look at Lowell's poetic arsenal.
• At this point, we haven't gone too far; we're still in the sailor's home waters. Here, the "you" is addressing the sailor, even though he's dead.
• The birds are mourning the sailor's loss; it's another moment of personification. In the epigraph, animals were said to be under the dominion of man, but here they're the ones mourning his loss. 
• The Pequod was the ship that sank in Moby Dick, and many sailors drowned. The speaker imagines that the sailor can hear it crash into the sea from where he lays (on the bottom of the ocean). 
• Notice how the Pequod has "wings" here, like the birds. Figuratively speaking, the ships are as helpless against the sea as a bird trying to fly in the water.

Lines 33-35

Off 'Sconset, where the yawing S-boats splash
The bellbuoy, with ballooning spinnakers,
As the entangled, screeching mainsheet clears 

• 'Sconset (short for Sciasconset) is another part of Nantucket; we're still in the sailor's home waters. 
• S-boats were used during World War II, the same war in which Lowell's cousin drowned. But it is more likely to refer to sailboats, which often sail around Nantucket.
• We get lots of nautical terms here, which echo Moby Dick (the novel has entire chapters describing parts of the ship). The bellbuoy is a bouy that has a bell to warn when the waves are getting big, the spinnakers are a type of sail, and the mainsheet is part of the sail. 
• The wind is again a strong presence, much like the waves were in the last section. The mainsheet is "screeching" and getting tangled up in the wind; again, the power of nature is greater than that of ship (or man).

Lines 36-39

The blocks: off Madaket, where lubbers lash
The heavy surf and throw their long lead squids
For blue-fish? Sea-gulls blink their heavy lids
Seaward. The winds' wings beat upon the stones, 

• Tongue-twister, much? Take a moment to notice all the wordplay in these four lines. There's a lot of rhythm happening here, including some alliteration with L sounds ("lubbers lash," "long lead," "lids"). Check out "Sound Check" for more.
• A "lubber" is an inexperienced sailor; here, the poor guys are struggling to tie up the nets and throw bait (made of lead, which means it's fake bait) into the water. 
• The speaker's still addressing the drowned sailor, and by calling the fishermen "lubbers" he is making fun of them a little (and also comparing them to the more skilled sailor). 
• More bird imagery here: the wind is given wings in line 39, and while the sea-gulls are sitting sleepily, the wind is actively flying around like a bird.

Lines 40-41

Cousin, and scream for you and the claws rush
At the sea's throat and wring it in the slush 

• Now those wings are screaming for the drowned sailor, who is definitely identified as Lowell's cousin Warren. Though Warren's body was never recovered, Lowell's speaker is imagining it was discovered by a crew and weighed down to be buried forever on the ocean floor. (By the way, it's an important point in poetry to make a distinction between the speaker of a poem and the poet him- or herself. Lowell often wrote from his own personal point of view, but it's important never to assume that he's speaking directly as himself.)
• The wind is screaming in grief for Warren; again, the speaker personifies an element of nature. Perhaps it mirrors the speaker's own grief. Ever notice that when you are sad, even neutral things can seem sad, too?
• The claws could perhaps belong to crabs and other sea creatures, or even the claws of birds. Whatever the creature, they are also grieving the sailor's death, and are so furious with the sea that they try to wring its neck.

Lines 42-44

Of this old Quaker graveyard where the bones
Cry out in the long night for the hurt beast
Bobbing by Ahab's whaleboats in the East.

• Quakers, a religious group known for their focus on peace, have a cemetery in Nantucket. It was established in 1730, and since it's long been a whaling island, presumably many of the buried are sailors. It'd be hard to tell for sure, though, because many of the graves are unmarked (just like the sea-graves of the drowned).
• Many of the drowned sailors in Moby Dick were Quakers, too, and Ahab was their captain. His pursuit of the white whale, the "hurt beast" that the sailors' bones cry out for, is the reason they drowned in the sea. 
• Is the speaker asking for retribution for these deaths? Or is he saying that these Quakers died a foolish death, chasing after a whale? Let's read on…