Abstract

Gloucester Honors Its Sailors

Somewhere on ocean's bottom, off the rocky northern shore of Massachusetts, a startled cod is making his supper of the pale gold petals of gladiolus and joyous mermaids are weaving garlands of nasturtiums for their hair. These strange treasures that the ebbing tides have carried out to sea are relics of the annual flower tribute of the folk of Gloucester to their men who have gone "down to the sea in ships." Men go down to death in the shafts of coalmines a score of times in every year, and their only monument is the stark black breaker. The mills claim their toll of lives and recall them only in the melancholy echoes of the factory siren, but the sturdy men who sail out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, to win their livelihood may find comfort in that, should they never see the lights of Eastern Point again, all the arts will join to pay tribute to their memory.