Through the port comes the moon-shine astray!
It tips the guard’s cutlass and silvers this nook;
But ’twill die in the dawning of Billy’s last day.
A jewel-block they’ll make of me to-morrow,
Pendant pearl from the yard-arm-end
Like the ear-drop I gave to Bristol Molly—
O, ’tis me, not the sentence they’ll suspend.
Herman Melville
Herman Melville (1819–1891), U.S. poet, novelist. Billy Budd, Foretopman (l. 4–10). . .
Selected Poems of Herman Melville. Hennig Cohen, ed. (1991) Fordham University Press.