JOHN MARR AND OTHER POEMS

By

HERMAN MELVILLE

_With An Introductory Note By_HENRY CHAPIN

MCMXXII

Introductory Note

Melville's verse printed for the most part privately in smalleditions from middle life onward after his great prose work hadbeen written, taken as a whole, is of an amateurish and unevenquality. In it, however, that loveable freshness of personality, which his philosophical dejection never quenched, is everywhere inevidence. It is clear that he did not set himself to master thepoet's art, yet through the mask of conventional verse which oftenfalls into doggerel, the voice of a true poet is heard. Inselecting the pieces for this volume I have put in the vigoroussea verses of _John Marr_ in their entirety and added those othersfrom his _Battle Pieces_, _Timoleon, _ etc. , that best indicate thequality of their author's personality. The prose supplement tobattle pieces has been included because it does so much to explainthe feeling of his war verse and further because it is such aremarkably wise and clear commentary upon those confused andtroublous days of post-war reconstruction. H. C. 

CONTENTS

Introductory Note

John Marr And Other Poems JOHN MARR AND OTHER SAILORS BRIDEGROOM DICK TOM DEADLIGHT JACK ROY

Sea Pieces THE HAGLETS THE AEOLIAN HARP TO THE MASTER OF THE "METEOR" FAR OFF SHORE THE MAN-OF-WAR HAWK THE FIGURE-HEAD THE GOOD CRAFT "SNOW BIRD" OLD COUNSEL THE TUFT OF KELP THE MALDIVE SHARK TO NED CROSSING THE TROPICS THE BERG THE ENVIABLE ISLES PEBBLES

Poems From Timoleon LINES TRACED UNDER AN IMAGE OF AMOR THREATENING THE NIGHT MARCH THE RAVAGED VILLA THE NEW ZEALOT TO THE SUN MONODY LONE FOUNTS THE BENCH OF BOORS ART THE ENTHUSIAST SHELLEY'S VISION THE MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES HERBA SANTA OFF CAPE COLONNA THE APPARITION L' ENVOI

Supplement

Poems From Battle Pieces THE PORTENT FROM THE CONFLICT OF CONVICTIONS THE MARCH INTO VIRGINIA BALL'S BLUFF THE STONE FLEET THE "TEMERAIRE" A UTILITARIAN VIEW OF THE "MONITOR'S" FIGHT MALVERN HILL STONEWALL JACKSON THE HOUSE-TOP CHATTANOOGA ON THE PHOTOGRAPH OF A CORPS COMMANDER THE SWAMP ANGEL SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK IN THE PRISON PEN THE COLLEGE COLONEL THE MARTYR REBEL COLOR-BEARERS AT SHILOH AURORA BOREALIS THE RELEASED REBEL PRISONER "FORMERLY A SLAVE" ON THE SLAIN COLLEGIANS AMERICA INSCRIPTION THE FORTITUDE OF THE NORTH THE MOUND BY THE LAKE ON THE SLAIN AT CHICKAMAUGA AN UNINSCRIBED MONUMENT ON THE GRAVE OF A YOUNG CAVALRY OFFICER KILLED IN THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA A REQUIEM COMMEMORATIVE OF A NAVAL VICTORY A MEDITATION

Poems From Mardi WE FISH INVOCATION DIRGE MARLENA PIPE SONG SONG OF YOOMY GOLD THE LAND OF LOVE

Poems From Clarel DIRGE EPILOGUE

JOHN MARR AND OTHER SAILORS

JOHN MARR AND OTHER SAILORS

Since as in night's deck-watch ye show, Why, lads, so silent here to me, Your watchmate of times long ago?Once, for all the darkling sea, You your voices raised how clearly, Striking in when tempest sung;Hoisting up the storm-sail cheerly, _Life is storm--let storm!_ you rung. Taking things as fated merely, Childlike though the world ye spanned;Nor holding unto life too dearly, Ye who held your lives in hand--Skimmers, who on oceans fourPetrels were, and larks ashore. 

O, not from memory lightly flung, Forgot, like strains no more availing, The heart to music haughtier strung;Nay, frequent near me, never staleing, Whose good feeling kept ye young. Like tides that enter creek or stream, Ye come, ye visit me, or seemSwimming out from seas of faces, Alien myriads memory traces, To enfold me in a dream!

I yearn as ye. But rafts that strain, Parted, shall they lock again?Twined we were, entwined, then riven, Ever to new embracements driven, Shifting gulf-weed of the main!And how if one here shift no more, Lodged by the flinging surge ashore?Nor less, as now, in eve's decline, Your shadowy fellowship is mine. Ye float around me, form and feature:--Tattooings, ear-rings, love-locks curled;Barbarians of man's simpler nature, Unworldly servers of the world. Yea, present all, and dear to me, Though shades, or scouring China's sea. 

Whither, whither, merchant-sailors, Whitherward now in roaring gales?Competing still, ye huntsman-whalers, In leviathan's wake what boat prevails?And man-of-war's men, whereaway?If now no dinned drum beat to quartersOn the wilds of midnight waters--Foemen looming through the spray;Do yet your gangway lanterns, streaming, Vainly strive to pierce below, When, tilted from the slant plank gleaming, A brother you see to darkness go?

But, gunmates lashed in shotted canvas, If where long watch-below ye keep, Never the shrill _"All hands up hammocks!"_Breaks the spell that charms your sleep, And summoning trumps might vainly call, And booming guns implore--A beat, a heart-beat musters all, One heart-beat at heart-core. It musters. But to clasp, retain;To see you at the halyards main--To hear your chorus once again!

BRIDEGROOM DICK1876

Sunning ourselves in October on a dayBalmy as spring, though the year was in decay, I lading my pipe, she stirring her tea, My old woman she says to me, "Feel ye, old man, how the season mellows?"And why should I not, blessed heart alive, Here mellowing myself, past sixty-five, To think o' the May-time o' pennoned young fellowsThis stripped old hulk here for years may survive. 

Ere yet, long ago, we were spliced, Bonny Blue, (Silvery it gleams down the moon-glade o' time, Ah, sugar in the bowl and berries in the prime!)Coxswain I o' the Commodore's crew, --Under me the fellows that manned his fine gig, Spinning him ashore, a king in full fig. Chirrupy even when crosses rubbed me, Bridegroom Dick lieutenants dubbed me. Pleasant at a yarn, Bob o' Linkum in a song, Diligent in duty and nattily arrayed, Favored I was, wife, and _fleeted_ right along;And though but a tot for such a tall grade, A high quartermaster at last I was made. 

All this, old lassie, you have heard before, But you listen again for the sake e'en o' me;No babble stales o' the good times o' yoreTo Joan, if Darby the babbler be. 

Babbler?--O' what? Addled brains, they forget!O--quartermaster I; yes, the signals set, Hoisted the ensign, mended it when frayed, Polished up the binnacle, minded the helm, And prompt every order blithely obeyed. To me would the officers say a word cheery--Break through the starch o' the quarter-deck realm;His coxswain late, so the Commodore's pet. Ay, and in night-watches long and weary, Bored nigh to death with the navy etiquette, Yearning, too, for fun, some younker, a cadet, Dropping for time each vain bumptious trick, Boy-like would unbend to Bridegroom Dick. But a limit there was--a check, d' ye see:Those fine young aristocrats knew their degree. 

Well, stationed aft where their lordships keep, --Seldom _going_ forward excepting to sleep, --I, boozing now on by-gone years, My betters recall along with my peers. Recall them? Wife, but I see them plain:Alive, alert, every man stirs again. Ay, and again on the lee-side pacing, My spy-glass carrying, a truncheon in show, Turning at the taffrail, my footsteps retracing, Proud in my duty, again methinks I go. And Dave, Dainty Dave, I mark where he stands, Our trim sailing-master, to time the high-noon, That thingumbob sextant perplexing eyes and hands, Squinting at the sun, or twigging o' the moon;Then, touching his cap to Old Chock-a-BlockCommanding the quarter-deck, --"Sir, twelve o'clock. "

Where sails he now, that trim sailing-master, Slender, yes, as the ship's sky-s'l pole?Dimly I mind me of some sad disaster--Dainty Dave was dropped from the navy-roll!And ah, for old Lieutenant Chock-a-Block--Fast, wife, chock-fast to death's black dock!Buffeted about the obstreperous ocean, Fleeted his life, if lagged his promotion. Little girl, they are all, all gone, I think, Leaving Bridegroom Dick here with lids that wink. 

Where is Ap Catesby? The fights fought of yoreFamed him, and laced him with epaulets, and more. But fame is a wake that after-wakes cross, And the waters wallow all, and laugh _Where's the loss?_But John Bull's bullet in his shoulder bearingBallasted Ap in his long sea-faring. The middies they ducked to the man who had messedWith Decatur in the gun-room, or forward pressedFighting beside Perry, Hull, Porter, and the rest. 

Humped veteran o' the Heart-o'-Oak war, Moored long in haven where the old heroes are, Never on _you_ did the iron-clads jar!Your open deck when the boarder assailed, The frank old heroic hand-to-hand then availed. 

But where's Guert Gan? Still heads he the van?As before Vera-Cruz, when he dashed splashing throughThe blue rollers sunned, in his brave gold-and- blue, And, ere his cutter in keel took the strand, Aloft waved his sword on the hostile land!Went up the cheering, the quick chanticleering;All hands vying--all colors flying:"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" and "Row, boys, row!""Hey, Starry Banner!" "Hi, Santa Anna!"Old Scott's young dash at Mexico. 

Fine forces o' the land, fine forces o' the sea, Fleet, army, and flotilla--tell, heart o' me, Tell, if you can, whereaway now they be!

But ah, how to speak of the hurricane unchained--The Union's strands parted in the hawser over-strained;Our flag blown to shreds, anchors gone altogether--The dashed fleet o' States in Secession's foul weather. 

Lost in the smother o' that wide public stress, In hearts, private hearts, what ties there were snapped!Tell, Hal--vouch, Will, o' the ward-room mess, On you how the riving thunder-bolt clapped. With a bead in your eye and beads in your glass, And a grip o' the flipper, it was part and pass:"Hal, must it be: Well, if come indeed the shock, To North or to South, let the victory cleave, Vaunt it he may on his dung-hill the cock, But _Uncle Sam's_ eagle never crow will, believe. "

Sentiment: ay, while suspended hung all, Ere the guns against Sumter opened there the ball, And partners were taken, and the red dance began, War's red dance o' death!--Well, we, to a man, We sailors o' the North, wife, how could we lag?--Strike with your kin, and you stick to the flag!But to sailors o' the South that easy way was barred. To some, dame, believe (and I speak o' what I know), Wormwood the trial and the Uzzite's black shard;And the faithfuller the heart, the crueller the throe. Duty? It pulled with more than one string, This way and that, and anyhow a sting. The flag and your kin, how be true unto both?If either plight ye keep, then ye break the other troth. But elect here they must, though the casuists were out;Decide--hurry up--and throttle every doubt. 

Of all these thrills thrilled at keelson, and throes, Little felt the shoddyites a-toasting o' their toes;In mart and bazar Lucre chuckled the huzza, Coining the dollars in the bloody mint of war. 

But in men, gray knights o' the Order o' Scars, And brave boys bound by vows unto Mars, Nature grappled honor, intertwisting in the strife:--But some cut the knot with a thoroughgoing knife. For how when the drums beat? How in the frayIn Hampton Roads on the fine balmy day?

There a lull, wife, befell--drop o' silent in the din. Let us enter that silence ere the belchings re-begin. Through a ragged rift aslant in the cannonade's smokeAn iron-clad reveals her repellent broadsideBodily intact. But a frigate, all oak, Shows honeycombed by shot, and her deck crimson-dyed. And a trumpet from port of the iron-clad hails, Summoning the other, whose flag never trails:"Surrender that frigate, Will! Surrender, Or I will sink her--_ram_, and end her!"

'T was Hal. And Will, from the naked heart-o'-oak, Will, the old messmate, minus trumpet, spoke, Informally intrepid, --"Sink her, and be damned!"* [* Historic. ]Enough. Gathering way, the iron-clad _rammed_. The frigate, heeling over, on the wave threw a dusk. Not sharing in the slant, the clapper of her bellThe fixed metal struck--uinvoked struck the knellOf the _Cumberland_ stillettoed by the _Merrimac's_ tusk;While, broken in the wound underneath the gun-deck, Like a sword-fish's blade in leviathan waylaid, The tusk was left infixed in the fast-foundering wreck. There, dungeoned in the cockpit, the wounded go down, And the chaplain with them. But the surges upliftThe prone dead from deck, and for moment they driftWashed with the swimmers, and the spent swimmers drown. Nine fathom did she sink, --erect, though hid from lightSave her colors unsurrendered and spars that kept the height. 

Nay, pardon, old aunty! Wife, never let it fall, That big started tear that hovers on the brim;I forgot about your nephew and the _Merrimac's_ ball;No more then of her, since it summons up him. But talk o' fellows' hearts in the wine's genial cup:--Trap them in the fate, jam them in the strait, Guns speak their hearts then, and speak right up. The troublous colic o' intestine warIt sets the bowels o' affection ajar. But, lord, old dame, so spins the whizzing world, A humming-top, ay, for the little boy-godsFlogging it well with their smart little rods, Tittering at time and the coil uncurled. 

Now, now, sweetheart, you sidle away, No, never you like _that_ kind o' _gay;_But sour if I get, giving truth her due, Honey-sweet forever, wife, will Dick be to you!

But avast with the War! 'Why recall racking daysSince set up anew are the slip's started stays?Nor less, though the gale we have left behind, Well may the heave o' the sea remind. It irks me now, as it troubled me then, To think o' the fate in the madness o' men. If Dick was with Farragut on the night-river, When the boom-chain we burst in the fire-raft's glare, That blood-dyed the visage as red as the liver;In the _Battle for the Bay_ too if Dick had a share, And saw one aloft a-piloting the war--Trumpet in the whirlwind, a Providence in place--Our Admiral old whom the captains huzza, Dick joys in the man nor brags about the race. 

But better, wife, I like to booze on the daysEre the Old Order foundered in these very frays, And tradition was lost and we learned strange ways. Often I think on the brave cruises then;Re-sailing them in memory, I hail the press o' menOn the gunned promenade where rolling they go, Ere the dog-watch expire and break up the show. The Laced Caps I see between forward guns;Away from the powder-room they puff the cigar;"Three days more, hey, the donnas and the dons!""Your Zeres widow, will you hunt her up, Starr?"The Laced Caps laugh, and the bright waves too;Very jolly, very wicked, both sea and crew, Nor heaven looks sour on either, I guess, Nor Pecksniff he bosses the gods' high mess. Wistful ye peer, wife, concerned for my head, And how best to get me betimes to my bed. 

But king o' the club, the gayest golden spark, Sailor o' sailors, what sailor do I mark?Tom Tight, Tom Tight, no fine fellow finer, A cutwater nose, ay, a spirited soul;But, bowsing away at the well-brewed bowl, He never bowled back from that last voyage to China. 

Tom was lieutenant in the brig-o'-war famedWhen an officer was hung for an arch-mutineer, But a mystery cleaved, and the captain was blamed, And a rumpus too raised, though his honor it was clear. And Tom he would say, when the mousers would try him, And with cup after cup o' Burgundy ply him:"Gentlemen, in vain with your wassail you beset, For the more I tipple, the tighter do I get. "No blabber, no, not even with the can--True to himself and loyal to his clan. 

Tom blessed us starboard and d--d us larboard, Right down from rail to the streak o' the garboard. Nor less, wife, we liked him. --Tom was a manIn contrast queer with Chaplain Le Fan, Who blessed us at morn, and at night yet again, D--ning us only in decorous strain;Preaching 'tween the guns--each cutlass in its place--From text that averred old Adam a hard case. I see him--Tom--on _horse-block_ standing, Trumpet at mouth, thrown up all amain, An elephant's bugle, vociferous demandingOf topmen aloft in the hurricane of rain, "Letting that sail there your faces flog?Manhandle it, men, and you'll get the good grog!"O Tom, but he knew a blue-jacket's ways, And how a lieutenant may genially haze;Only a sailor sailors heartily praise. 

Wife, where be all these chaps, I wonder?Trumpets in the tempest, terrors in the fray, Boomed their commands along the deck like thunder;But silent is the sod, and thunder dies away. But Captain Turret, _"Old Hemlock"_ tall, (A leaning tower when his tank brimmed all, )Manoeuvre out alive from the war did he?Or, too old for that, drift under the lee?Kentuckian colossal, who, touching at Madeira, The huge puncheon shipped o' prime _Santa-Clara;_Then rocked along the deck so solemnly!No whit the less though judicious was enoughIn dealing with the Finn who made the great huff;Our three-decker's giant, a grand boatswain's mate, Manliest of men in his own natural senses;But driven stark mad by the devil's drugged stuff, Storming all aboard from his run-ashore late, Challenging to battle, vouchsafing no pretenses, A reeling King Ogg, delirious in power, The quarter-deck carronades he seemed to make cower. "Put him in _brig_ there!" said Lieutenant Marrot. "Put him in _brig!_" back he mocked like a parrot;"Try it, then!" swaying a fist like Thor's sledge, And making the pigmy constables hedge--Ship's corporals and the master-at-arms. "In _brig_ there, I say!"--They dally no more;Like hounds let slip on a desperate boar, Together they pounce on the formidable Finn, Pinion and cripple and hustle him in. Anon, under sentry, between twin guns, He slides off in drowse, and the long night runs. 

Morning brings a summons. Whistling it calls, Shrilled through the pipes of the boatswain's four aids;Trilled down the hatchways along the dusk halls:_Muster to the Scourge!_--Dawn of doom and its blast!As from cemeteries raised, sailors swarm before the mast, Tumbling up the ladders from the ship's nether shades. 

Keeping in the background and taking small part, Lounging at their ease, indifferent in face, Behold the trim marines uncompromised in heart;Their Major, buttoned up, near the staff finds room--The staff o' lieutenants standing grouped in their place. All the Laced Caps o' the ward-room come, The Chaplain among them, disciplined and dumb. The blue-nosed boatswain, complexioned like slag, Like a blue Monday lours--his implements in bag. Executioners, his aids, a couple by him stand, At a nod there the thongs to receive from his hand. Never venturing a caveat whatever may betide, Though functionally here on humanity's side, The grave Surgeon shows, like the formal physicianAttending the rack o' the Spanish Inquisition. 

The angel o' the "brig" brings his prisoner up;Then, steadied by his old _Santa-Clara_, a sup, Heading all erect, the ranged assizes there, Lo, Captain Turret, and under starred bunting, (A florid full face and fine silvered hair, )Gigantic the yet greater giant confronting. 

Now the culprit he liked, as a tall captain canA Titan subordinate and true _sailor-man;_And frequent he'd shown it--no worded advance, But flattering the Finn with a well-timed glance. But what of that now? In the martinet-mienRead the _Articles of War_, heed the naval routine;While, cut to the heart a dishonor there to win, Restored to his senses, stood the Anak Finn;In racked self-control the squeezed tears peeping, Scalding the eye with repressed inkeeping. Discipline must be; the scourge is deemed due. But ah for the sickening and strange heart- benumbing, Compassionate abasement in shipmates that view;Such a grand champion shamed there succumbing!"Brown, tie him up. "--The cord he brooked:How else?--his arms spread apart--never threaping;No, never he flinched, never sideways he looked, Peeled to the waistband, the marble flesh creeping, Lashed by the sleet the officious winds urge. 

In function his fellows their fellowship merge--The twain standing nigh--the two boatswain's mates, Sailors of his grade, ay, and brothers of his mess. With sharp thongs adroop the junior one awaitsThe word to uplift. "Untie him--so!Submission is enough, Man, you may go. "Then, promenading aft, brushing fat Purser Smart, "Flog? Never meant it--hadn't any heart. Degrade that tall fellow? "--Such, wife, was he, Old Captain Turret, who the brave wine could stow. Magnanimous, you think?--But what does Dick see?Apron to your eye! Why, never fell a blow;Cheer up, old wifie, 't was a long time ago. 

But where's that sore one, crabbed and-severe, Lieutenant Lon Lumbago, an arch scrutineer?Call the roll to-day, would he answer--_Here!_When the _Blixum's_ fellows to quarters musteredHow he'd lurch along the lane of gun-crews clustered, Testy as touchwood, to pry and to peer. Jerking his sword underneath larboard arm, He ground his worn grinders to keep himself calm. Composed in his nerves, from the fidgets set free, Tell, Sweet Wrinkles, alive now is he, In Paradise a parlor where the even tempers be?

Where's Commander All-a-Tanto?Where's Orlop Bob singing up from below?Where's Rhyming Ned? has he spun his last canto?Where's Jewsharp Jim? Where's Ringadoon Joe?Ah, for the music over and done, The band all dismissed save the droned trombone!Where's Glenn o' the gun-room, who loved Hot-Scotch--Glen, prompt and cool in a perilous watch?Where's flaxen-haired Phil? a gray lieutenant?Or rubicund, flying a dignified pennant?

But where sleeps his brother?--the cruise it was o'er, But ah, for death's grip that welcomed him ashore!Where's Sid, the cadet, so frank in his brag, Whose toast was audacious--"_Here's Sid, and Sid's flag!_"Like holiday-craft that have sunk unknown, May a lark of a lad go lonely down?Who takes the census under the sea?Can others like old ensigns be, Bunting I hoisted to flutter at the gaff--Rags in end that once were flagsGallant streaming from the staff?

Such scurvy doom could the chances dealTo Top-Gallant Harry and Jack Genteel?Lo, Genteel Jack in hurricane weather, Shagged like a bear, like a red lion roaring;But O, so fine in his chapeau and feather, In port to the ladies never once _jawing;_All bland _politesse, _ how urbane was he--_"Oui, mademoiselle"--"Ma chère amie!"_

'T was Jack got up the ball at Naples, Gay in the old _Ohio_ glorious;His hair was curled by the berth-deck barber, Never you'd deemed him a cub of rude Boreas;In tight little pumps, with the grand dames in rout, A-flinging his shapely foot all about;His watch-chain with love's jeweled tokens abounding, Curls ambrosial shaking out odors, Waltzing along the batteries, astoundingThe gunner glum and the grim-visaged loaders. 

Wife, where be all these blades, I wonder, Pennoned fine fellows, so strong, so gay?Never their colors with a dip dived under;Have they hauled them down in a lack-lustre day, Or beached their boats in the Far, Far Away?Hither and thither, blown wide asunder, Where's this fleet, I wonder and wonder. Slipt their cables, rattled their adieu, (Whereaway pointing? to what rendezvous?)Out of sight, out of mind, like the crack _Constitution, _And many a keel time never shall renew--_Bon Homme Dick_ o' the buff Revolution, The _Black Cockade_ and the staunch _True-Blue. _

Doff hats to Decatur! But where is his blazon?Must merited fame endure time's wrong--Glory's ripe grape wizen up to a raisin?Yes! for Nature teems, and the years are strong, And who can keep the tally o' the names that fleet along!

But his frigate, wife, his bride? Would blacksmiths brownInto smithereens smite the solid old renown?Rivetting the bolts in the iron-clad's shell, Hark to the hammers with _a rat-tat-tat;_"Handier a _derby_ than a laced cocked hat!The _Monitor_ was ugly, but she served us right well, Better than the _Cumberland, _ a beauty and the belle. "

_Better than the Cumberland!_--Heart alive in me!That battlemented hull, Tantallon o' the sea, Kicked in, as at Boston the taxed chests o' tea!Ay, spurned by the _ram, _ once a tall, shapely craft, But lopped by the Rebs to an iron-beaked raft--A blacksmith's unicorn in armor _cap-a-pie_. 

Under the water-line a _ram's_ blow is dealt:And foul fall the knuckles that strike below the belt. Nor brave the inventions that serve to replaceThe openness of valor while dismantling the grace. 

Aloof from all this and the never-ending game, Tantamount to teetering, plot and counterplot;Impenetrable armor--all-perforating shot;Aloof, bless God, ride the war-ships of old, A grand fleet moored in the roadstead of fame;Not submarine sneaks with _them_ are enrolled;Their long shadows dwarf us, their flags are as flame. 

Don't fidget so, wife; an old man's passionAmounts to no more than this smoke that I puff;There, there, now, buss me in good old fashion;A died-down candle will flicker in the snuff. 

But one last thing let your old babbler say, What Decatur's coxswain said who was long ago hearsed, "Take in your flying-kites, for there comes a lubber's dayWhen gallant things will go, and the three- deckers first. "

My pipe is smoked out, and the grog runs slack;But bowse away, wife, at your blessed Bohea;This empty can here must needs solace me--Nay, sweetheart, nay; I take that back;Dick drinks from your eyes and he finds no lack!

TOM DEADLIGHT

 During a tempest encountered homeward-bound from the Mediterranean, a grizzled petty-officer, one of the two captains of the forecastle, dying at night in his hammock, swung in the sick-bay under the tiered gun-decks of the British _Dreadnaught, 98, _ wandering in his mind, though with glimpses of sanity, and starting up at whiles, sings by snatches his good-bye and last injunctions to two messmates, his watchers, one of whom fans the fevered tar with the flap of his old sou'wester. Some names and phrases, with here and there a line, or part of one; these, in his aberration, wrested into incoherency from their original connection and import, he voluntarily derives, as he does the measure, from a famous old sea-ditty, whose cadences, long rife, and now humming in the collapsing brain, attune the last flutterings of distempered thought. 

Farewell and adieu to you noble hearties, -- Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain, For I've received orders for to sail for the Deadman, But hope with the grand fleet to see you again. 

I have hove my ship to, with main-top-sail aback, boys; I have hove my ship to, for the strike soundings clear--The black scud a'flying; but, by God's blessing, dam' me, Right up the Channel for the Deadman I'll steer. 

I have worried through the waters that are called the Doldrums, And growled at Sargasso that clogs while ye grope--Blast my eyes, but the light-ship is hid by the mist, lads:-- _Flying Dutchman_--odds bobbs--off the Cape of Good Hope!

But what's this I feel that is fanning my cheek, Matt? The white goney's wing?--how she rolls!-- 't is the Cape!--Give my kit to the mess, Jock, for kin none is mine, none; And tell _Holy Joe_ to avast with the crape. 

Dead reckoning, says _Joe_, it won't do to go by; But they doused all the glims, Matt, in sky t' other night. Dead reckoning is good for to sail for the Deadman; And Tom Deadlight he thinks it may reckon near right. 

The signal!--it streams for the grand fleet to anchor. The captains--the trumpets--the hullabaloo!Stand by for blue-blazes, and mind your shank-painters, For the Lord High Admiral, he's squinting at you!

But give me my _tot_, Matt, before I roll over; Jock, let's have your flipper, it's good for to feel;And don't sew me up without _baccy_ in mouth, boys, And don't blubber like lubbers when I turn up my keel. 

JACK ROY

Kept up by relays of generations youngNever dies at halyards the blithe chorus sung;While in sands, sounds, and seas where the storm-petrels cry, Dropped mute around the globe, these halyard singers lie. Short-lived the clippers for racing-cups that run, And speeds in life's career many a lavish mother's-son. 

But thou, manly king o' the old _Splendid's_ crew, The ribbons o' thy hat still a-fluttering, should fly--A challenge, and forever, nor the bravery should rue. Only in a tussle for the starry flag high, When 'tis piety to do, and privilege to die. Then, only then, would heaven think to lopSuch a cedar as the captain o' the _Splendid's_ main-top:A belted sea-gentleman; a gallant, off-handMercutio indifferent in life's gay command. Magnanimous in humor; when the splintering shot fell, "Tooth-picks a-plenty, lads; thank 'em with a shell!"

Sang Larry o' the _Cannakin, _ smuggler o' the wine, At mess between guns, lad in jovial recline:"In Limbo our Jack he would chirrup up a cheer, The martinet there find a chaffing mutineer;From a thousand fathoms down under hatches o' your Hades, He'd ascend in love-ditty, kissing fingers to your ladies!"

Never relishing the knave, though allowing for the menial, Nor overmuch the king, Jack, nor prodigally genial. Ashore on liberty he flashed in escapade, Vaulting over life in its levelness of grade, Like the dolphin off Africa in rainbow a-sweeping--Arch iridescent shot from seas languid sleeping. 

Larking with thy life, if a joy but a toy, Heroic in thy levity wert thou, Jack Roy. 

Sea Pieces

THE HAGLETS

By chapel bare, with walls sea-beatThe lichened urns in wilds are lostAbout a carved memorial stoneThat shows, decayed and coral-mossed, A form recumbent, swords at feet, Trophies at head, and kelp for a winding-sheet. 

I invoke thy ghost, neglected fane, Washed by the waters' long lament;I adjure the recumbent effigyTo tell the cenotaph's intent--Reveal why fagotted swords are at feet, Why trophies appear and weeds are the winding-sheet. 

By open ports the Admiral sits, And shares repose with guns that tellOf power that smote the arm'd Plate FleetWhose sinking flag-ship's colors fell;But over the Admiral floats in lightHis squadron's flag, the red-cross Flag of the White. 

 The eddying waters whirl astern, The prow, a seedsman, sows the spray;With bellying sails and buckling sparsThe black hull leaves a Milky Way;Her timbers thrill, her batteries roll, She revelling speeds exulting with pennon at pole, But ah, for standards captive trailedFor all their scutcheoned castles' pride--Castilian towers that dominate Spain, Naples, and either Ind beside;Those haughty towers, armorial ones, Rue the salute from the Admiral's dens of guns. 

Ensigns and arms in trophy brave, Braver for many a rent and scar, The captor's naval hall bedeck, Spoil that insures an earldom's star--Toledoes great, grand draperies, too, Spain's steel and silk, and splendors from Peru. 

 But crippled part in splintering fight, The vanquished flying the victor's flags, With prize-crews, under convoy-guns, Heavy the fleet from Opher drags--The Admiral crowding sail ahead, Foremost with news who foremost in conflict sped. 

 But out from cloistral gallery dim, In early night his glance is thrown;He marks the vague reserve of heaven, He feels the touch of ocean lone;Then turns, in frame part undermined, Nor notes the shadowing wings that fan behind. 

There, peaked and gray, three haglets fly, And follow, follow fast in wakeWhere slides the cabin-lustre shy, And sharks from man a glamour take, Seething along the line of lightIn lane that endless rules the war-ship's flight. 

 The sea-fowl here, whose hearts none know, They followed late the flag-ship quelled, (As now the victor one) and longAbove her gurgling grave, shrill heldWith screams their wheeling rites--then spedDirect in silence where the victor led. 

 Now winds less fleet, but fairer, blow, A ripple laps the coppered side, While phosphor sparks make ocean gleam, Like camps lit up in triumph wide;With lights and tinkling cymbals meetAcclaiming seas the advancing conqueror greet. 

But who a flattering tide may trust, Or favoring breeze, or aught in end?--Careening under startling blastsThe sheeted towers of sails impend;While, gathering bale, behind is bredA livid storm-bow, like a rainbow dead. 

 At trumpet-call the topmen spring;And, urged by after-call in stress, Yet other tribes of tars ascendThe rigging's howling wilderness;But ere yard-ends alert they win, Hell rules in heaven with hurricane-fire and din. 

 The spars, athwart at spiry height, Like quaking Lima's crosses rock;Like bees the clustering sailors clingAgainst the shrouds, or take the shockFlat on the swept yard-arms aslant, Dipped like the wheeling condor's pinions gaunt. 

A LULL! and tongues of languid flameLick every boom, and lambent showElectric 'gainst each face aloft;The herds of clouds with bellowings go:The black ship rears--beset--harassed, Then plunges far with luminous antlers vast. 

 In trim betimes they turn from land, Some shivered sails and spars they stow;One watch, dismissed, they troll the can, While loud the billow thumps the bow--Vies with the fist that smites the board, Obstreperous at each reveller's jovial word. 

 Of royal oak by storms confirmed, The tested hull her lineage shows:Vainly the plungings whelm her prow--She rallies, rears, she sturdier grows:Each shot-hole plugged, each storm-sail home, With batteries housed she rams the watery dome. 

DIM seen adrift through driving scud, The wan moon shows in plight forlorn;Then, pinched in visage, fades and fadesLike to the faces drowned at morn, When deeps engulfed the flag-ship's crew, And, shrilling round, the inscrutable haglets flew. 

And still they fly, nor now they cry, But constant fan a second wake, Unflagging pinions ply and ply, Abreast their course intent they take;Their silence marks a stable mood, They patient keep their eager neighborhood. 

 Plumed with a smoke, a confluent sea, Heaved in a combing pyramid full, Spent at its climax, in collapseDown headlong thundering stuns the hull:The trophy drops; but, reared again, Shows Mars' high-altar and contemns the main. 

REBUILT it stands, the brag of arms, Transferred in site--no thought of whereThe sensitive needle keeps its place, And starts, disturbed, a quiverer there;The helmsman rubs the clouded glass--Peers in, but lets the trembling portent pass. 

 Let pass as well his shipmates do(Whose dream of power no tremors jar)Fears for the fleet convoyed astern:"Our flag they fly, they share our star;Spain's galleons great in hull are stout:Manned by our men--like us they'll ride it out. "

 Tonight's the night that ends the week--Ends day and week and month and year:A fourfold imminent flickering time, For now the midnight draws anear:Eight bells! and passing-bells they be--The Old year fades, the Old Year dies at sea. 

He launched them well. But shall the NewRedeem the pledge the Old Year made, Or prove a self-asserting heir?But healthy hearts few qualms invade:By shot-chests grouped in bays 'tween gunsThe gossips chat, the grizzled, sea-beat ones. 

 And boyish dreams some graybeards blab:"To sea, my lads, we go no moreWho share the Acapulco prize;We'll all night in, and bang the door;Our ingots red shall yield us bliss:Lads, golden years begin to-night with this!"

 Released from deck, yet waiting call, Glazed caps and coats baptized in storm, A watch of Laced Sleeves round the boardDraw near in heart to keep them warm:"Sweethearts and wives!" clink, clink, they meet, And, quaffing, dip in wine their beards of sleet. "Ay, let the star-light stay withdrawn, So here her hearth-light memory fling, So in this wine-light cheer be born, And honor's fellowship weld our ring--Honor! our Admiral's aim foretold:

_A tomb or a trophy, _ and lo, 't is a trophy and gold!" But he, a unit, sole in rank, Apart needs keep his lonely state, The sentry at his guarded doorMute as by vault the sculptured Fate;Belted he sits in drowsy light, And, hatted, nods--the Admiral of the White. 

 He dozes, aged with watches passed--Years, years of pacing to and fro;He dozes, nor attends the stirIn bullioned standards rustling low, Nor minds the blades whose secret thrillPerverts overhead the magnet's Polar will:--

LESS heeds the shadowing three that playAnd follow, follow fast in wake, Untiring wing and lidless eye--Abreast their course intent they take;Or sigh or sing, they hold for goodThe unvarying flight and fixed inveterate mood. 

 In dream at last his dozings merge, In dream he reaps his victor's fruit;The Flags-o'-the-Blue, the Flags-o'-the-Red, Dipped flags of his country's fleets saluteHis Flag-o'-the-White in harbor proud--But why should it blench? Why turn to a painted shroud?

 The hungry seas they hound the hull, The sharks they dog the haglets' flight;With one consent the winds, the wavesIn hunt with fins and wings unite, While drear the harps in cordage soundRemindful wails for old Armadas drowned. 

Ha--yonder! are they Northern Lights?Or signals flashed to warn or ward?Yea, signals lanced in breakers high;But doom on warning follows hard:While yet they veer in hope to shun, They strike! and thumps of hull and heart are one. 

 But beating hearts a drum-beat callsAnd prompt the men to quarters go;Discipline, curbing nature, rules--Heroic makes who duty know:They execute the trump's command, Or in peremptory places wait and stand. 

 Yet cast about in blind amaze--As through their watery shroud they peer:"We tacked from land: then how betrayed?Have currents swerved us--snared us here?"None heed the blades that clash in placeUnder lamps dashed down that lit the magnet's case. 

Ah, what may live, who mighty swim, Or boat-crew reach that shore forbid, Or cable span? Must victors drown--Perish, even as the vanquished did?Man keeps from man the stifled moan;They shouldering stand, yet each in heart how lone. 

 Some heaven invoke; but rings of reefsPrayer and despair alike derideIn dance of breakers forked or peaked, Pale maniacs of the maddened tide;While, strenuous yet some end to earn, The haglets spin, though now no more astern. 

Like shuttles hurrying in the loomsAloft through rigging frayed they ply--Cross and recross--weave and inweave, Then lock the web with clinching cryOver the seas on seas that claspThe weltering wreck where gurgling ends the gasp. 

Ah, for the Plate-Fleet trophy now, The victor's voucher, flags and arms;Never they'll hang in Abbey oldAnd take Time's dust with holier palms;Nor less content, in liquid night, Their captor sleeps--the Admiral of the White. 

 Imbedded deep with shells And drifted treasure deep, Forever he sinks deeper in Unfathomable sleep-- His cannon round him thrown, His sailors at his feet, The wizard sea enchanting them Where never haglets beat. 

 On nights when meteors play And light the breakers dance, The Oreads from the caves With silvery elves advance; And up from ocean stream, And down from heaven far, The rays that blend in dream The abysm and the star. 

THE AEOLIAN HARP_At The Surf Inn_

List the harp in window wailing Stirred by fitful gales from sea:Shrieking up in mad crescendo-- Dying down in plaintive key!

Listen: less a strain idealThan Ariel's rendering of the Real. What that Real is, let hint A picture stamped in memory's mint. 

Braced well up, with beams aslant, Betwixt the continents sails the _Phocion, _For Baltimore bound from Alicant. Blue breezy skies white fleeces fleckOver the chill blue white-capped ocean:From yard-arm comes--"Wreck ho, a wreck!"

Dismasted and adrift, Longtime a thing forsaken;Overwashed by every waveLike the slumbering kraken;Heedless if the billow roar, Oblivious of the lull, Leagues and leagues from shoal or shore, It swims--a levelled hull:Bulwarks gone--a shaven wreck, Nameless and a grass-green deck. A lumberman: perchance, in holdProstrate pines with hemlocks rolled. 

It has drifted, waterlogged, Till by trailing weeds beclogged: Drifted, drifted, day by day, Pilotless on pathless way. It has drifted till each plankIs oozy as the oyster-bank: Drifted, drifted, night by night, Craft that never shows a light;Nor ever, to prevent worse knell, Tolls in fog the warning bell. 

From collision never shrinking, Drive what may through darksome smother;Saturate, but never sinking, Fatal only to the _other!_ Deadlier than the sunken reefSince still the snare it shifteth, Torpid in dumb ambuscadeWaylayingly it drifteth. 

O, the sailors--O, the sails!O, the lost crews never heard of!Well the harp of Ariel wailsThought that tongue can tell no word of!

TO THE MASTER OF THE _METEOR_

Lonesome on earth's loneliest deep, Sailor! who dost thy vigil keep--Off the Cape of Storms dost musing sweepOver monstrous waves that curl and comb;Of thee we think when here from brinkWe blow the mead in bubbling foam. 

Of thee we think, in a ring we link;To the shearer of ocean's fleece we drink, And the _Meteor_ rolling home. 

FAR OFF-SHORE

Look, the raft, a signal flying, Thin--a shred;None upon the lashed spars lying, Quick or dead. 

Cries the sea-fowl, hovering over, "Crew, the crew?"And the billow, reckless, rover, Sweeps anew!

THE MAN-OF-WAR HAWK

Yon black man-of-war-hawk that wheels in the lightO'er the black ship's white sky-s'l, sunned cloud to the sight, Have we low-flyers wings to ascend to his height?No arrow can reach him; nor thought can attainTo the placid supreme in the sweep of his reign. 

THE FIGURE-HEAD

The _Charles-and-Emma_ seaward sped, (Named from the carven pair at prow, )He so smart, and a curly head, She tricked forth as a bride knows how:Pretty stem for the port, I trow!

But iron-rust and alum-sprayAnd chafing gear, and sun and dewVexed this lad and lassie gay, Tears in their eyes, salt tears nor few; And the hug relaxed with the failing glue. 

But came in end a dismal night, With creaking beams and ribs that groan, A black lee-shore and waters white:Dropped on the reef, the pair lie prone: O, the breakers dance, but the winds they moan!

THE GOOD CRAFT _SNOW BIRD_

Strenuous need that head-wind be From purposed voyage that drives at lastThe ship, sharp-braced and dogged still, Beating up against the blast. 

Brigs that figs for market gather, Homeward-bound upon the stretch, Encounter oft this uglier weather Yet in end their port they fetch. 

Mark yon craft from sunny Smyrna Glazed with ice in Boston Bay;Out they toss the fig-drums cheerly, Livelier for the frosty ray. 

What if sleet off-shore assailed her, What though ice yet plate her yards;In wintry port not less she renders Summer's gift with warm regards!

And, look, the underwriters' man, Timely, when the stevedore's done, Puts on his _specs_ to pry and scan, And sets her down--_A, No. 1. _

Bravo, master! Bravo, brig! For slanting snows out of the WestNever the _Snow-Bird_ cares one fig; And foul winds steady her, though a pest. 

OLD COUNSEL_Of The Young Master of a Wrecked California Clipper_

Come out of the Golden Gate, Go round the Horn with streamers, Carry royals early and late;But, brother, be not over-elate--_All hands save ship!_ has startled dreamers. 

THE TUFT OF KELP

All dripping in tangles green, Cast up by a lonely seaIf purer for that, O Weed, Bitterer, too, are ye?

THE MALDIVE SHARK

About the Shark, phlegmatical one, Pale sot of the Maldive sea, The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim, How alert in attendance be. From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of mawThey have nothing of harm to dread, But liquidly glide on his ghastly flankOr before his Gorgonian head:Or lurk in the port of serrated teethIn white triple tiers of glittering gates, And there find a haven when peril's abroad, An asylum in jaws of the Fates!They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey, Yet never partake of the treat--Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull, Pale ravener of horrible meat. 

TO NED

Where is the world we roved, Ned Bunn? Hollows thereof lay rich in shadeBy voyagers old inviolate thrown Ere Paul Pry cruised with Pelf and Trade. To us old lads some thoughts come homeWho roamed a world young lads no more shall roam. 

Nor less the satiate year impends When, wearying of routine-resorts, The pleasure-hunter shall break loose, Ned, for our Pantheistic ports:--Marquesas and glenned isles that beAuthentic Edens in a Pagan sea. 

The charm of scenes untried shall lure, And, Ned, a legend urge the flight--The Typee-truants under starsUnknown to Shakespere's _Midsummer- Night;_And man, if lost to Saturn's Age, Yet feeling life no Syrian pilgrimage. 

But, tell, shall he, the tourist, find Our isles the same in violet-glowEnamoring us what years and years-- Ah, Ned, what years and years ago!Well, Adam advances, smart in pace, But scarce by violets that advance you trace. 

But we, in anchor-watches calm, The Indian Psyche's languor won, And, musing, breathed primeval balm From Edens ere yet overrun;Marvelling mild if mortal twice, Here and hereafter, touch a Paradise. 

CROSSING THE TROPICS_From "The Saya-y-Manto. "_

While now the Pole Star sinks from sight The Southern Cross it climbs the sky;But losing thee, my love, my light, O bride but for one bridal night, The loss no rising joys supply. 

Love, love, the Trade Winds urge abaft, And thee, from thee, they steadfast waft. 

By day the blue and silver sea And chime of waters blandly fanned--Nor these, nor Gama's stars to meMay yield delight since still for thee I long as Gama longed for land. 

I yearn, I yearn, reverting turn, My heart it streams in wake asternWhen, cut by slanting sleet, we swoop Where raves the world's inverted year, If roses all your porch shall loop, Not less your heart for me will droop Doubling the world's last outpost drear. 

O love, O love, these oceans vast:Love, love, it is as death were past!

THE BERG_A Dream_

I SAW a ship of martial build(Her standards set, her brave apparel on)Directed as by madness mereAgainst a stolid iceberg steer, Nor budge it, though the infatuate ship went down. The impact made huge ice-cubes fallSullen, in tons that crashed the deck;But that one avalanche was allNo other movement save the foundering wreck. 

Along the spurs of ridges pale, Not any slenderest shaft and frail, A prism over glass--green gorges lone, Toppled; nor lace of traceries fine, Nor pendant drops in grot or mineWere jarred, when the stunned ship went down. Nor sole the gulls in cloud that wheeledCircling one snow-flanked peak afar, But nearer fowl the floes that skimmedAnd crystal beaches, felt no jar. No thrill transmitted stirred the lockOf jack-straw needle-ice at base;Towers undermined by waves--the blockAtilt impending--kept their place. Seals, dozing sleek on sliddery ledgesSlipt never, when by loftier edgesThrough very inertia overthrown, The impetuous ship in bafflement went down. Hard Berg (methought), so cold, so vast, With mortal damps self-overcast;Exhaling still thy dankish breath--Adrift dissolving, bound for death;Though lumpish thou, a lumbering one--A lumbering lubbard loitering slow, Impingers rue thee and go down, Sounding thy precipice below, Nor stir the slimy slug that sprawlsAlong thy dense stolidity of walls. 

THE ENVIABLE ISLES_From "Rammon. "_

Through storms you reach them and from storms are free. Afar descried, the foremost drear in hue, But, nearer, green; and, on the marge, the sea Makes thunder low and mist of rainbowed dew. 

But, inland, where the sleep that folds the hillsA dreamier sleep, the trance of God, instills-- On uplands hazed, in wandering airs aswoon, Slow-swaying palms salute love's cypress tree Adown in vale where pebbly runlets croonA song to lull all sorrow and all glee. 

Sweet-fern and moss in many a glade are here. Where, strewn in flocks, what cheek-flushed myriads lieDimpling in dream--unconscious slumberers mere, While billows endless round the beaches die. 

PEBBLES

IThough the Clerk of the Weather insist, And lay down the weather-law, Pintado and gannet they wistThat the winds blow whither they list In tempest or flaw. 

IIOld are the creeds, but stale the schools, Revamped as the mode may veer, But Orm from the schools to the beaches straysAnd, finding a Conch hoar with time, he delays And reverent lifts it to ear. That Voice, pitched in far monotone, Shall it swerve? shall it deviate ever?The Seas have inspired it, and Truth-- Truth, varying from sameness never. 

IIIIn hollows of the liquid hills Where the long Blue Ridges run, The flattery of no echo thrills, For echo the seas have none;Nor aught that gives man back man's strain--The hope of his heart, the dream in his brain. 

IVOn ocean where the embattled fleets repair, Man, suffering inflictor, sails on sufferance there. 

VImplacable I, the old Implacable Sea: Implacable most when most I smile serene--Pleased, not appeased, by myriad wrecks in me. 

VICurled in the comb of yon billow Andean, Is it the Dragon's heaven-challenging crest?Elemental mad ramping of ravening waters-- Yet Christ on the Mount, and the dove in her nest!

VIIHealed of my hurt, I laud the inhuman Sea--Yea, bless the Angels Four that there convene;For healed I am ever by their pitiless breathDistilled in wholesome dew named rosmarine. 

Poems From Timoleon

LINES TRACED UNDER AN IMAGE OF AMOR THREATENING

Fear me, virgin whosoeverTaking pride from love exempt, Fear me, slighted. Never, neverBrave me, nor my fury tempt:Downy wings, but wroth they beatTempest even in reason's seat. 

THE NIGHT MARCH

With banners furled and clarions mute, An army passes in the night;And beaming spears and helms salute The dark with bright. 

In silence deep the legions stream, With open ranks, in order true;Over boundless plains they stream and gleam-- No chief in view!

Afar, in twinkling distance lost, (So legends tell) he lonely wendsAnd back through all that shining host His mandate sends. 

THE RAVAGED VILLA

In shards the sylvan vases lie, Their links of dance undone, And brambles wither by thy brim, Choked fountain of the sun!The spider in the laurel spins, The weed exiles the flower:And, flung to kiln, Apollo's bust Makes lime for Mammon's tower. 

THE NEW ZEALOT TO THE SUN

Persian, you riseAflame from climes of sacrifice Where adulators sue, And prostrate man, with brow abased, Adheres to rites whose tenor traced All worship hitherto. 

 Arch type of sway, Meetly your over-ruling ray You fling from Asia's plain, Whence flashed the javelins abroadOf many a wild incursive horde Led by some shepherd Cain. 

 Mid terrors dinnedGods too came conquerors from your Ind, The book of Brahma throve;They came like to the scythed car, Westward they rolled their empire far, Of night their purple wove. 

 Chemist, you breedIn orient climes each sorcerous weed That energizes dream--Transmitted, spread in myths and creeds, Houris and hells, delirious screeds And Calvin's last extreme. 

 What though your lightIn time's first dawn compelled the flight Of Chaos' startled clan, Shall never all your darted spearsDisperse worse Anarchs, frauds and fears, Sprung from these weeds to man?

 But Science yetAn effluence ampler shall beget, And power beyond your play--Shall quell the shades you fail to rout, Yea, searching every secret out Elucidate your ray. 

MONODY

To have known him, to have loved him After loneness long;And then to be estranged in life, And neither in the wrong;And now for death to set his seal-- Ease me, a little ease, my song!

By wintry hills his hermit-mound The sheeted snow-drifts drape, And houseless there the snow-bird flits Beneath the fir-trees' crape:Glazed now with ice the cloistral vine That hid the shyest grape. 

LONE FOUNTS

Though fast youth's glorious fable flies, View not the world with worldling's eyes;Nor turn with weather of the time. Foreclose the coming of surprise:Stand where Posterity shall stand;Stand where the Ancients stood before, And, dipping in lone founts thy hand, Drink of the never-varying lore:Wise once, and wise thence evermore. 

THE BENCH OF BOORS

In bed I muse on Tenier's boors, Embrowned and beery losels all; A wakeful brain Elaborates pain:Within low doors the slugs of boorsLaze and yawn and doze again. 

In dreams they doze, the drowsy boors, Their hazy hovel warm and small: Thought's ampler bound But chill is found:Within low doors the basking boorsSnugly hug the ember-mound. 

Sleepless, I see the slumberous boorsTheir blurred eyes blink, their eyelids fall: Thought's eager sight Aches--overbright!Within low doors the boozy boorsCat-naps take in pipe-bowl light. 

ART

In placid hours well-pleased we dreamOf many a brave unbodied scheme. But form to lend, pulsed life create, What unlike things must meet and mate:A flame to melt--a wind to freeze;Sad patience--joyous energies;Humility--yet pride and scorn;Instinct and study; love and hate;Audacity--reverence. These must mate, And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart, To wrestle with the angel--Art. 

THE ENTHUSIAST_"Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him. "_

Shall hearts that beat no base retreat In youth's magnanimous years--Ignoble hold it, if discreet When interest tames to fears;Shall spirits that worship light Perfidious deem its sacred glow, Recant, and trudge where worldlings go, Conform and own them right?

Shall Time with creeping influence cold Unnerve and cow? the heartPine for the heartless ones enrolled With palterers of the mart?Shall faith abjure her skies, Or pale probation blench her down To shrink from Truth so still, so loneMid loud gregarious lies?

Each burning boat in Caesar's rear, Flames--No return through me!So put the torch to ties though dear, If ties but tempters be. Nor cringe if come the night: Walk through the cloud to meet the pall, Though light forsake thee, never fallFrom fealty to light. 

SHELLEY'S VISION

Wandering late by morning seas When my heart with pain was low--Hate the censor pelted me-- Deject I saw my shadow go. 

In elf-caprice of bitter toneI too would pelt the pelted one:At my shadow I cast a stone. 

When lo, upon that sun-lit ground I saw the quivering phantom takeThe likeness of St. Stephen crowned: Then did self-reverence awake. 

THE MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS

He toned the sprightly beam of morning With twilight meek of tender eve, Brightness interfused with softness, Light and shade did weave:And gave to candor equal placeWith mystery starred in open skies;And, floating all in sweetness, made Her fathomless mild eyes. 

THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES

While faith forecasts millennial years Spite Europe's embattled lines, Back to the Past one glance be cast-- The Age of the Antonines!O summit of fate, O zenith of timeWhen a pagan gentleman reigned, And the olive was nailed to the inn of the worldNor the peace of the just was feigned. A halcyon Age, afar it shines, Solstice of Man and the Antonines. 

Hymns to the nations' friendly godsWent up from the fellowly shrines, No demagogue beat the pulpit-drum In the Age of the Antonines!The sting was not dreamed to be taken from death, No Paradise pledged or sought, But they reasoned of fate at the flowing feast, Nor stifled the fluent thought, We sham, we shuffle while faith declines-- They were frank in the Age of the Antonines. 

Orders and ranks they kept degree, Few felt how the parvenu pines, No law-maker took the lawless one's fee In the Age of the Antonines!Under law made will the world reposedAnd the ruler's right confessed, For the heavens elected the Emperor then, The foremost of men the best. Ah, might we read in America's signs The Age restored of the Antonines. 

HERBA SANTA

IAfter long wars when comes releaseNot olive wands proclaiming peace Can import dearer shareThan stems of Herba Santa hazed In autumn's Indian air. Of moods they breathe that care disarm, They pledge us lenitive and calm. 

IIShall code or creed a lure affordTo win all selves to Love's accord?When Love ordained a supper divine For the wide world of man, What bickerings o'er his gracious wine! Then strange new feuds began. 

Effectual more in lowlier way, Pacific Herb, thy sensuous pleaThe bristling clans of Adam sway At least to fellowship in thee!Before thine altar tribal flags are furled, Fain wouldst thou make one hearthstone of the world. 

IIITo scythe, to sceptre, pen and hod-- Yea, sodden laborers dumb;To brains overplied, to feet that plod, In solace of the _Truce of God_ The Calumet has come!

IVAh for the world ere Raleigh's find Never that knew this suasive balmThat helps when Gilead's fails to heal, Helps by an interserted charm. 

Insinuous thou that through the nerve Windest the soul, and so canst winSome from repinings, some from sin, The Church's aim thou dost subserve. 

The ruffled fag fordone with care And brooding, God would ease this pain:Him soothest thou and smoothest down Till some content return again. 

Even ruffians feel thy influence breed Saint Martin's summer in the mind, They feel this last evangel plead, As did the first, apart from creed, Be peaceful, man--be kind!

VRejected once on higher plain, O Love supreme, to come again Can this be thine?Again to come, and win us too In likeness of a weedThat as a god didst vainly woo, As man more vainly bleed?

VIForbear, my soul! and in thine Eastern chamber Rehearse the dream that brings the long release:Through jasmine sweet and talismanic amber Inhaling Herba Santa in the passive Pipe of Peace. 

OFF CAPE COLONNA

Aloof they crown the foreland lone, From aloft they loftier rise--Fair columns, in the aureole rolled From sunned Greek seas and skies. They wax, sublimed to fancy's view, A god-like group against the blue. 

Over much like gods! Serene they saw The wolf-waves board the deck, And headlong hull of Falconer, And many a deadlier wreck. 

THE APPARITION_The Parthenon uplifted on its rock firstchallenging the view on the approach to Athens. _

Abrupt the supernatural Cross, Vivid in startled air, Smote the Emperor ConstantineAnd turned his soul's allegiance there. 

With other power appealing down, Trophy of Adam's best!If cynic minds you scarce convert, You try them, shake them, or molest. 

Diogenes, that honest heart, Lived ere your date began;Thee had he seen, he might have swervedIn mood nor barked so much at Man. 

L'ENVOI_The Return of the Sire de Nesle. _A. D. 16

My towers at last! These rovings end, Their thirst is slaked in larger dearth:The yearning infinite recoils, For terrible is earth. 

Kaf thrusts his snouted crags through fog:Araxes swells beyond his span, And knowledge poured by pilgrimage Overflows the banks of man. 

But thou, my stay, thy lasting loveOne lonely good, let this but be!Weary to view the wide world's swarm, But blest to fold but thee. 

SUPPLEMENT

Were I fastidiously anxious for the symmetry of this book, it wouldclose with the notes. But the times are such that patriotism--not freefrom solicitude--urges a claim overriding all literary scruples. 

It is more than a year since the memorable surrender, but events havenot yet rounded themselves into completion. Not justly can we complainof this. There has been an upheaval affecting the basis of things; toaltered circumstances complicated adaptations are to be made; there aredifficulties great and novel. But is Reason still waiting for Passionto spend itself? We have sung of the soldiers and sailors, but whoshall hymn the politicians?

In view of the infinite desirableness of Re-establishment, andconsidering that, so far as feeling is concerned, it depends not mainlyon the temper in which the South regards the North, but ratherconversely; one who never was a blind adherent feels constrained tosubmit some thoughts, counting on the indulgence of his countrymen. 

And, first, it may be said that, if among the feelings and opinionsgrowing immediately out of a great civil convulsion, there are anywhich time shall modify or do away, they are presumably those of a lesstemperate and charitable cast. 

There seems no reason why patriotism and narrowness should go together, or why intellectual impartiality should be confounded with politicaltrimming, or why serviceable truth should keep cloistered because notpartisan. Yet the work of Reconstruction, if admitted to be feasible atall, demands little but common sense and Christian charity. Little butthese? These are much. 

Some of us are concerned because as yet the South shows no penitence. But what exactly do we mean by this? Since down to the close of the warshe never confessed any for braving it, the only penitence now left heris that which springs solely from the sense of discomfiture; and sincethis evidently would be a contrition hypocritical, it would be unworthyin us to demand it. Certain it is that penitence, in the sense ofvoluntary humiliation, will never be displayed. Nor does this affordjust ground for unreserved condemnation. It is enough, for allpractical purposes, if the South have been taught by the terrors ofcivil war to feel that Secession, like Slavery, is against Destiny;that both now lie buried in one grave; that her fate is linked withours; and that together we comprise the Nation. 

The clouds of heroes who battled for the Union it is needless toeulogize here. But how of the soldiers on the other side? And when of afree community we name the soldiers, we thereby name the people. It wasin subserviency to the slave-interest that Secession was plotted; butit was under the plea, plausibly urged, that certain inestimable rightsguaranteed by the Constitution were directly menaced, that the peopleof the South were cajoled into revolution. Through the arts of theconspirators and the perversity of fortune, the most sensitive love ofliberty was entrapped into the support of a war whose implied end wasthe erecting in our advanced century of an Anglo-American empire basedupon the systematic degradation of man. 

Spite this clinging reproach, however, signal military virtues andachievements have conferred upon the Confederate arms historic fame, and upon certain of the commanders a renown extending beyond thesea--a renown which we of the North could not suppress, even if wewould. In personal character, also, not a few of the military leadersof the South enforce forbearance; the memory of others the Northrefrains from disparaging; and some, with more or less of reluctance, she can respect. Posterity, sympathizing with our convictions, butremoved from our passions, may perhaps go farther here. If George IVcould, out of the graceful instinct of a gentleman, raise an honorablemonument in the great fane of Christendom over the remains of the enemyof his dynasty, Charles Edward, the invader of England and victor inthe rout of Preston Pans--upon whose head the king's ancestor but onereign removed had set a price--is it probable that the granchildren ofGeneral Grant will pursue with rancor, or slur by sour neglect, thememory of Stonewall Jackson?

But the South herself is not wanting in recent histories andbiographies which record the deeds of her chieftains--writings freelypublished at the North by loyal houses, widely read here, and with adeep though saddened interest. By students of the war such works arehailed as welcome accessories, and tending to the completeness of therecord. 

Supposing a happy issue out of present perplexities, then, in thegeneration next to come, Southerners there will be yielding allegianceto the Union, feeling all their interests bound up in it, and yetcherishing unrebuked that kind of feeling for the memory of thesoldiers of the fallen Confederacy that Burns, Scott, and the EttrickShepherd felt for the memory of the gallant clansmen ruined throughtheir fidelity to the Stuarts--a feeling whose passion was tempered bythe poetry imbuing it, and which in no wise affected their loyalty tothe Georges, and which, it may be added, indirectly contributedexcellent things to literature. But, setting this view aside, dishonorable would it be in the South were she willing to abandon toshame the memory of brave men who with signal personaldisinterestedness warred in her behalf, though from motives, as webelieve, so deplorably astray. 

Patriotism is not baseness, neither is it inhumanity. The mourners whothis summer bear flowers to the mounds of the Virginian and Georgiandead are, in their domestic bereavement and proud affection, as sacredin the eye of Heaven as are those who go with similar offerings oftender grief and love into the cemeteries of our Northern martyrs. Andyet, in one aspect, how needless to point the contrast. 

Cherishing such sentiments, it will hardly occasion surprise that, inlooking over the battle-pieces in the foregoing collection, I have beentempted to withdraw or modify some of them, fearful lest in presenting, though but dramatically and by way of poetic record, the passions andepithets of civil war, I might be contributing to a bitterness whichevery sensible American must wish at an end. So, too, with the emotionof victory as reproduced on some pages, and particularly toward theclose. It should not be construed into an exultation misapplied--anexultation as ungenerous as unwise, and made to minister, howeverindirectly, to that kind of censoriousness too apt to be produced incertain natures by success after trying reverses. Zeal is not ofnecessity religion, neither is it always of the same essence withpoetry or patriotism. 

There are excesses which marked the conflict, most of which are perhapsinseparable from a civil strife so intense and prolonged, and involvingwarfare in some border countries new and imperfectly civilized. Barbarities also there were, for which the Southern people collectivelycan hardly be held responsible, though perpetrated by ruffians in theirname. But surely other qualities--exalted ones--courage and fortitudematchless, were likewise displayed, and largely; and justly may thesebe held the characteristic traits, and not the former. 

In this view, what Northern writer, however patriotic, but must revoltfrom acting on paper a part any way akin to that of the live dog to thedead lion; and yet it is right to rejoice for our triumphs, so far asit may justly imply an advance for our whole country and for humanity. 

Let it be held no reproach to any one that he pleads for reasonableconsideration for our late enemies, now stricken down and unavoidablydebarred, for the time, from speaking through authorized agencies forthemselves. Nothing has been urged here in the foolish hope ofconciliating those men--few in number, we trust--who have resolvednever to be reconciled to the Union. On such hearts everything isthrown away except it be religious commiseration, and the sincerest. Yet let them call to mind that unhappy Secessionist, not a militaryman, who with impious alacrity fired the first shot of the Civil War atSumter, and a little more than four years afterward fired the last oneinto his heart at Richmond. 

Noble was the gesture into which patriotic passion surprised the peoplein a utilitarian time and country; yet the glory of the war falls shortof its pathos--a pathos which now at last ought to disarm allanimosity. 

How many and earnest thoughts still rise, and how hard to repress them. We feel what past years have been, and years, unretarded years, shallcome. May we all have moderation; may we all show candor. Though, perhaps, nothing could ultimately have averted the strife, and thoughto treat of human actions is to deal wholly with second causes, nevertheless, let us not cover up or try to extenuate what, humanlyspeaking, is the truth--namely, that those unfraternal denunciations, continued through years, and which at last inflamed to deeds that endedin bloodshed, were reciprocal; and that, had the preponderatingstrength and the prospect of its unlimited increase lain on the otherside, on ours might have lain those actions which now in our lateopponents we stigmatize under the name of Rebellion. As frankly let usown--what it would be unbecoming to parade were foreigners concerned--that our triumph was won not more by skill and bravery than by superiorresources and crushing numbers; that it was a triumph, too, over apeople for years politically misled by designing men, and also by somehonestly-erring men, who from their position could not have beenotherwise than broadly influential; a people who, though, indeed, theysought to perpetuate the curse of slavery, and even extend it, were notthe authors of it, but (less fortunate, not less righteous than we), were the fated inheritors; a people who, having a like origin withourselves, share essentially in whatever worthy qualities we maypossess. No one can add to the lasting reproach which hopeless defeathas now cast upon Secession by withholding the recognition of theseverities. 

Surely we ought to take it to heart that that kind of pacification, based upon principles operating equally all over the land, which loversof their country yearn for, and which our arms, though signallytriumphant, did not bring about, and which lawmaking, however anxious, or energetic, or repressive, never by itself can achieve, may yet belargely aided by generosity of sentiment public and private. Somerevisionary legislation and adaptive is indispensable; but with thisshould harmoniously work another kind of prudence, not unallied withentire magnanimity. Benevolence and policy--Christianity andMachiavelli--dissuade from penal severities toward the subdued. Abstinence here is as obligatory as considerate care for ourunfortunate fellowmen late in bonds, and, if observed, would equallyprove to be wise forecast. The great qualities of the South, thoseattested in the War, we can perilously alienate, or we may make themnationally available at need. 

The blacks, in their infant pupilage to freedom, appeal to thesympathies of every humane mind. The paternal guardianship which forthe interval government exercises over them was prompted equally byduty and benevolence. Yet such kindliness should not be allowed toexclude kindliness to communities who stand nearer to us in nature. Forthe future of the freed slaves we may well be concerned; but the futureof the whole country, involving the future of the blacks, urges aparamount claim upon our anxiety. Effective benignity, like the Nile, is not narrow in its bounty, and true policy is always broad. To besure, it is vain to seek to glide, with moulded words, over thedifficulties of the situation. And for them who are neither partisans, nor enthusiasts, nor theorists, nor cynics, there are some doubts notreadily to be solved. And there are fears. Why is not the cessation ofwar now at length attended with the settled calm of peace? Wherefore ina clear sky do we still turn our eyes toward the South as theNeapolitan, months after the eruption, turns his toward Vesuvius? Do wedread lest the repose may be deceptive? In the recent convulsion hasthe crater but shifted Let us revere that sacred uncertainty whichforever impends over men and nations. Those of us who always abhorredslavery as an atheistical iniquity, gladly we join in the exultingchorus of humanity over its downfall. But we should remember thatemancipation was accomplished not by deliberate legislation; onlythrough agonized violence could so mighty a result be effected. In ournatural solicitude to confirm the benefit of liberty to the blacks, letus forbear from measures of dubious constitutional rightfulness towardour white countrymen--measures of a nature to provoke, among other ofthe last evils, exterminating hatred of race toward race. Inimagination let us place ourselves in the unprecedented position of theSoutherners--their position as regards the millions of ignorantmanumitted slaves in their midst, for whom some of us now claim thesuffrage. Let us be Christians toward our fellow-whites, as well asphilanthropists toward the blacks, our fellow-men. In all things, andtoward all, we are enjoined to do as we would be done by. Nor should weforget that benevolent desires, after passing a certain point, can notundertake their own fulfillment without incurring the risk of evilsbeyond those sought to be remedied. Something may well be left to thegraduated care of future legislation, and to heaven. In one point ofview the co-existence of the two races in the South, whether the negrobe bond or free, seems (even as it did to Abraham Lincoln) a graveevil. Emancipation has ridded the country of the reproach, but notwholly of the calamity. Especially in the present transition period forboth races in the South, more or less of trouble may not unreasonablybe anticipated; but let us not hereafter be too swift to charge theblame exclusively in any one quarter. With certain evils men must bemore or less patient. Our institutions have a potent digestion, and mayin time convert and assimilate to good all elements thrown in, howeveroriginally alien. 

But, so far as immediate measures looking toward permanent Re-establishment are concerned, no consideration should tempt us topervert the national victory into oppression for the vanquished. Shouldplausible promise of eventual good, or a deceptive or spurious sense ofduty, lead us to essay this, count we must on serious consequences, notthe least of which would be divisions among the Northern adherents ofthe Union. Assuredly, if any honest Catos there be who thus far havegone with us, no longer will they do so, but oppose us, and asresolutely as hitherto they have supported. But this path of thoughtleads toward those waters of bitterness from which one can only turnaside and be silent. 

But supposing Re-establishment so far advanced that the Southern seatsin Congress are occupied, and by men qualified in accordance with thosecardinal principles of representative government which hitherto haveprevailed in the land--what then? Why, the Congressmen elected by thepeople of the South will--represent the people of the South. This mayseem a flat conclusion; but, in view of the last five years, may therenot be latent significance in it? What will be the temper of thoseSouthern members? and, confronted by them, what will be the mood of ourown representatives? In private life true reconciliation seldom followsa violent quarrel; but, if subsequent intercourse be unavoidable, niceobservances and mutual are indispensable to the prevention of a newrupture. Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, andtrue friends are punctilious equals. On the floor of Congress North andSouth are to come together after a passionate duel, in which the South, though proving her valor, has been made to bite the dust. Upondifferences in debate shall acrimonious recriminations be exchanged?Shall censorious superiority assumed by one section provoke defiantself-assertion on the other? Shall Manassas and Chickamauga be retortedfor Chattanooga and Richmond? Under the supposition that the fullCongress will be composed of gentlemen, all this is impossible. Yet, ifotherwise, it needs no prophet of Israel to foretell the end. Themaintenance of Congressional decency in the future will rest mainlywith the North. Rightly will more forbearance be required from theNorth than the South, for the North is victor. 

But some there are who may deem these latter thoughts inapplicable, andfor this reason: Since the test-oath operatively excludes from Congressall who in any way participated in Secession, therefore none butSoutherners wholly in harmony with the North are eligible to seats. This is true for the time being. But the oath is alterable; and in thewonted fluctuations of parties not improbably it will undergoalteration, assuming such a form, perhaps, as not to bar the admissioninto the National Legislature of men who represent the populationslately in revolt. Such a result would involve no violation of theprinciples of democratic government. Not readily can one perceive howthe political existence of the millions of late Secessionists canpermanently be ignored by this Republic. The years of the war tried ourdevotion to the Union; the time of peace may test the sincerity of ourfaith in democracy. 

In no spirit of opposition, not by way of challenge, is anything herethrown out. These thoughts are sincere ones; they seem natural--inevitable. Here and there they must have suggested themselves to manythoughtful patriots. And, if they be just thoughts, ere long they musthave that weight with the public which already they have had withindividuals. 

For that heroic band--those children of the furnace who, in regionslike Texas and Tennessee, maintained their fidelity through terribletrials--we of the North felt for them, and profoundly we honor them. Yet passionate sympathy, with resentments so close as to be almostdomestic in their bitterness, would hardly in the present juncture tendto discreet legislation. Were the Unionists and Secessionists but asGuelphs and Ghibellines? If not, then far be it from a great nation nowto act in the spirit that animated a triumphant town-faction in theMiddle Ages. But crowding thoughts must at last be checked; and, intimes like the present, one who desires to be impartially just in theexpression of his views, moves as among sword-points presented on everyside. 

Let us pray that the terrible historic tragedy of our time may not havebeen enacted without instructing our whole beloved country throughterror and pity; and may fulfillment verify in the end thoseexpectations which kindle the bards of Progress and Humanity. 

Poems From Battle Pieces

THE PORTENT1859

Hanging from the beam, Slowly swaying (such the law), Gaunt the shadow on your green, Shenandoah!The cut is on the crown(Lo, John Brown), And the stabs shall heal no more. 

Hidden in the cap Is the anguish none can draw;So your future veils its face, Shenandoah!But the streaming beard is shown(Weird John Brown), The meteor of the war. 

FROM THE CONFLICT OF CONVICTIONS1860-1

The Ancient of Days forever is young, Forever the scheme of Nature thrives;I know a wind in purpose strong-- It spins _against_ the way it drives. What if the gulfs their slimed foundations bare?So deep must the stones be hurledWhereon the throes of ages rearThe final empire and the happier world. 

 Power unanointed may come--Dominion (unsought by the free) And the Iron Dome, Stronger for stress and strain, Fling her huge shadow athwart the main;But the Founders' dream shall flee. Age after age has been, (From man's changeless heart their way they win);And death be busy with all who strive--Death, with silent negative. 

 _Yea and Nay--_ _Each hath his say;_ _But God He keeps the middle way. _ _None was by_ _When He spread the sky;_ _Wisdom is vain, and prophecy. _

THE MARCH INTO VIRGINIA_Ending in the First Manassas_July, 1861

Did all the lets and bars appear To every just or larger end, Whence should come the trust and cheer? Youth must its ignorant impulse lend--Age finds place in the rear. All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys, The champions and enthusiasts of the state: Turbid ardors and vain joys Not barrenly abate-- Stimulants to the power mature, Preparatives of fate. 

Who here forecasteth the event?What heart but spurns at precedentAnd warnings of the wise, Contemned foreclosures of surprise?The banners play, the bugles call, The air is blue and prodigal. No berrying party, pleasure-wooed, No picnic party in the May, Ever went less loth than they Into that leafy neighborhood. In Bacchic glee they file toward Fate, Moloch's uninitiate;Expectancy, and glad surmiseOf battle's unknown mysteries. All they feel is this: 't is glory, A rapture sharp, though transitory, Yet lasting in belaureled story. So they gayly go to fight, Chatting left and laughing right. 

But some who this blithe mood present, As on in lightsome files they fare, Shall die experienced ere three days are spent-- Perish, enlightened by the vollied glare;Or shame survive, and, like to adamant, The throe of Second Manassas share. 

BALL'S BLUFF_A Reverie_October, 1861

One noonday, at my window in the town, I saw a sight--saddest that eyes can see-- Young soldiers marching lustily Unto the wars, With fifes, and flags in mottoed pageantry; While all the porches, walks, and doorsWere rich with ladies cheering royally. 

They moved like Juny morning on the wave, Their hearts were fresh as clover in its prime (It was the breezy summer time), Life throbbed so strong, How should they dream that Death in a rosy clime Would come to thin their shining throng?Youth feels immortal, like the gods sublime. 

Weeks passed; and at my window, leaving bed, By night I mused, of easeful sleep bereft, On those 'brave boys (Ah War! thy theft); Some marching feetFound pause at last by cliffs Potomac cleft; Wakeful I mused, while in the streetFar footfalls died away till none were left. 

THE STONE FLEET_An Old Sailor's Lament_December, 1861

I have a feeling for those ships, Each worn and ancient one, With great bluff bows, and broad in the beam: Ay, it was unkindly done. But so they serve the Obsolete-- Even so, Stone Fleet!

You'll say I'm doting; do you think I scudded round the Horn in one--The _Tenedos, _ a glorious Good old craft as ever run-- Sunk (how all unmeet!) With the Old Stone Fleet. 

An India ship of fame was she, Spices and shawls and fans she bore;A whaler when the wrinkles came-- Turned off! till, spent and poor, Her bones were sold (escheat)! Ah! Stone Fleet. 

Four were erst patrician keels (Names attest what families be), The _Kensington, _ and _Richmond_ too, _Leonidas, _ and _Lee_: But now they have their seat With the Old Stone Fleet. 

To scuttle them--a pirate deed-- Sack them, and dismast;They sunk so slow, they died so hard, But gurgling dropped at last. Their ghosts in gales repeat _Woe's us, Stone Fleet!_

And all for naught. The waters pass-- Currents will have their way;Nature is nobody's ally; 'tis well; The harbor is bettered--will stay. A failure, and complete, Was your Old Stone Fleet. 

THE TEMERAIRE

_Supposed to have been suggested to an Englishman ofthe old order by the fight of the Monitor and Merrimac_

The gloomy hulls in armor grim, Like clouds o'er moors have met, And prove that oak, and iron, and man Are tough in fibre yet. 

But Splendors wane. The sea-fight yields No front of old display;The garniture, emblazonment, And heraldry all decay. 

Towering afar in parting light, The fleets like Albion's forelands shine--The full-sailed fleets, the shrouded show Of Ships-of-the-Line. 

 The fighting _Temeraire, _ Built of a thousand trees, Lunging out her lightnings, And beetling o'er the seas-- O Ship, how brave and fair, That fought so oft and well, On open decks you manned the gun Armorial. What cheerings did you share, Impulsive in the van, When down upon leagued France and Spain We English ran--The freshet at your bowsprit Like the foam upon the can. Bickering, your colors Licked up the Spanish air, You flapped with flames of battle-flags-- Your challenge, _Temeraire!_The rear ones of our fleet They yearned to share your place, Still vying with the VictoryThroughout that earnest race--The Victory, whose Admiral, With orders nobly won, Shone in the globe of the battle glow-- The angel in that sun. Parallel in story, Lo, the stately pair, As late in grapple ranging, The foe between them there--When four great hulls lay tiered, And the fiery tempest cleared, And your prizes twain appeared, _Temeraire!_

But Trafalgar is over now, The quarter-deck undone;The carved and castled navies fire Their evening-gun. O, Titan _Temeraire, _ Your stern-lights fade away;Your bulwarks to the years must yield, And heart-of-oak decay. A pigmy steam-tug tows you, Gigantic, to the shore--Dismantled of your guns and spars, And sweeping wings of war. The rivets clinch the iron clads, Men learn a deadlier lore;But Fame has nailed your battle-flags-- Your ghost it sails before:O, the navies old and oaken, O, the _Temeraire_ no more!

A UTILITARIAN VIEW OF THE _MONITOR'S_ FIGHT

Plain be the phrase, yet apt the verse, More ponderous than nimble;For since grimed War here laid asideHis Orient pomp, 'twould ill befit Overmuch to ply The rhyme's barbaric cymbal. 

Hail to victory without the gaud Of glory; zeal that needs no fansOf banners; plain mechanic powerPlied cogently in War now placed-- Where War belongs-- Among the trades and artisans. 

Yet this was battle, and intense-- Beyond the strife of fleets heroic;Deadlier, closer, calm 'mid storm;No passion; all went on by crank, Pivot, and screw, And calculations of caloric. 

Needless to dwell; the story's known. The ringing of those plates on platesStill ringeth round the world--The clangor of that blacksmiths' fray. The anvil-din Resounds this message from the Fates:

War shall yet be, and to the end; But war-paint shows the streaks of weather;War yet shall be, but warriorsAre now but operatives; War's made Less grand than Peace, And a singe runs through lace and feather. 

MALVERN HILLJuly, 1862

Ye elms that wave on Malvern Hill In prime of morn and May, Recall ye how McClellan's men Here stood at bay?While deep within yon forest dim Our rigid comrades lay--Some with the cartridge in their mouth, Others with fixed arms lifted South-- Invoking so--The cypress glades? Ah wilds of woe!

The spires of Richmond, late beheldThrough rifts in musket-haze, Were closed from view in clouds of dust On leaf-walled ways, Where streamed our wagons in caravan; And the Seven Nights and DaysOf march and fast, retreat and fight, Pinched our grimed faces to ghastly plight-- Does the elm woodRecall the haggard beards of blood?

The battle-smoked flag, with stars eclipsed, We followed (it never fell!)--In silence husbanded our strength-- Received their yell;Till on this slope we patient turned With cannon ordered well;Reverse we proved was not defeat;But ah, the sod what thousands meet!-- Does Malvern WoodBethink itself, and muse and brood? _We elms of Malvern Hill_ _Remember everything;_ _But sap the twig will fill:_ _Wag the world how it will, _ _Leaves must be green in Spring. _

STONEWALL JACKSON_Mortally wounded at Chancellorsville_May, 1863

THE Man who fiercest charged in fight, Whose sword and prayer were long-- Stonewall! Even him who stoutly stood for Wrong, How can we praise? Yet coming days Shall not forget him with this song. 

Dead is the Man whose Cause is dead, Vainly he died and set his seal-- Stonewall! Earnest in error, as we feel;True to the thing he deemed was due, True as John Brown or steel. 

Relentlessly he routed us; But _we_ relent, for he is low-- Stonewall! Justly his fame we outlaw; soWe drop a tear on the bold Virginian's bier, Because no wreath we owe. 

THE HOUSE-TOPJuly, 1863_A Night Piece_

No sleep. The sultriness pervades the airAnd binds the brain--a dense oppression, suchAs tawny tigers feel in matted shades, Vexing their blood and making apt for ravage. Beneath the stars the roofy desert spreadsVacant as Libya. All is hushed near by. Yet fitfully from far breaks a mixed surfOf muffled sound, the Atheist roar of riot. Yonder, where parching Sirius set in drought, Balefully glares red Arson--there--and there. The Town is taken by its rats--ship-ratsAnd rats of the wharves. All civil charmsAnd priestly spells which late held hearts in awe--Fear-bound, subjected to a better swayThan sway of self; these like a dream dissolve, And man rebounds whole aeons back in nature. Hail to the low dull rumble, dull and dead, And ponderous drag that shakes the wall. Wise Draco comes, deep in the midnight rollOf black artillery; he comes, though late;In code corroborating Calvin's creedAnd cynic tyrannies of honest kings;He comes, nor parlies; and the Town, redeemed, Gives thanks devout; nor, being thankful, heedsThe grimy slur on the Republic's faith implied, Which holds that Man is naturally good, And--more--is Nature's Roman, never to be scourged. 

CHATTANOOGANovember, 1863

A kindling impulse seized the host Inspired by heaven's elastic air;Their hearts outran their General's plan, Though Grant commanded there-- Grant, who without reserve can dare;And, "Well, go on and do your will, " He said, and measured the mountain then:So master-riders fling the rein-- But you must know your men. 

On yester-morn in grayish mist, Armies like ghosts on hills had fought, And rolled from the cloud their thunders loud The Cumberlands far had caught: To-day the sunlit steeps are sought. Grant stood on cliffs whence all was plain, And smoked as one who feels no cares;But mastered nervousness intenseAlone such calmness wears. 

The summit-cannon plunge their flame Sheer down the primal wall, But up and up each linking troop In stretching festoons crawl-- Nor fire a shot. Such men appallThe foe, though brave. He, from the brink, Looks far along the breadth of slope, And sees two miles of dark dots creep, And knows they mean the cope. 

He sees them creep. Yet here and there Half hid 'mid leafless groves they go;As men who ply through traceries high Of turreted marbles show-- So dwindle these to eyes below. But fronting shot and flanking shell Sliver and rive the inwoven ways;High tops of oaks and high hearts fall, But never the climbing stays. 

From right to left, from left to right They roll the rallying cheer--Vie with each other, brother with brother, Who shall the first appear-- What color-bearer with colors clearIn sharp relief, like sky-drawn Grant, Whose cigar must now be near the stump--While in solicitude his back Heaps slowly to a hump. 

Near and more near; till now the flags Run like a catching flame;And one flares highest, to peril nighest-- _He_ means to make a name: Salvos! they give him his fame. The staff is caught, and next the rush, And then the leap where death has led;Flag answered flag along the crest, And swarms of rebels fled. 

But some who gained the envied Alp, And--eager, ardent, earnest there--Dropped into Death's wide-open arms, Quelled on the wing like eagles struck in air-- Forever they slumber young and fair, The smile upon them as they died; Their end attained, that end a height:Life was to these a dream fulfilled, And death a starry night. 

ON THE PHOTOGRAPH OF A CORPS COMMANDER

Ay, man is manly. Here you see The warrior-carriage of the head, And brave dilation of the frame; And lighting all, the soul that ledIn Spottsylvania's charge to victory, Which justifies his fame. 

A cheering picture. It is good To look upon a Chief like this, In whom the spirit moulds the form. Here favoring Nature, oft remiss, With eagle mien expressive has endued A man to kindle strains that warm. 

Trace back his lineage, and his sires, Yeoman or noble, you shall findEnrolled with men of Agincourt, Heroes who shared great Harry's mind. Down to us come the knightly Norman fires, And front the Templars bore. 

Nothing can lift the heart of man Like manhood in a fellow-man. The thought of heaven's great King afarBut humbles us--too weak to scan;But manly greatness men can span, And feel the bonds that draw. 

THE SWAMP ANGEL

There is a coal-black Angel With a thick Afric lip, And he dwells (like the hunted and harried) In a swamp where the green frogs dip. But his face is against a City Which is over a bay of the sea, And he breathes with a breath that is blastment, And dooms by a far decree. 

By night there is fear in the City, Through the darkness a star soareth on;There's a scream that screams up to the zenith, Then the poise of a meteor lone--Lighting far the pale fright of the faces, And downward the coming is seen;Then the rush, and the burst, and the havoc, And wails and shrieks between. 

It comes like the thief in the gloaming; It comes, and none may foretellThe place of the coming--the glaring; They live in a sleepless spellThat wizens, and withers, and whitens; It ages the young, and the bloomOf the maiden is ashes of roses-- The Swamp Angel broods in his gloom. 

Swift is his messengers' going, But slowly he saps their halls, As if by delay deluding. They move from their crumbling wallsFarther and farther away; But the Angel sends after and after, By night with the flame of his ray-- By night with the voice of his screaming--Sends after them, stone by stone, And farther walls fall, farther portals, And weed follows weed through the Town. 

Is this the proud City? the scorner Which never would yield the ground?Which mocked at the coal-black Angel? The cup of despair goes round. Vainly he calls upon Michael (The white man's seraph was he, )For Michael has fled from his tower To the Angel over the sea. Who weeps for the woeful City Let him weep for our guilty kind;Who joys at her wild despairing--Christ, the Forgiver, convert his mind. 

SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEKOctober, 1864

Shoe the steed with silver That bore him to the fray, When he heard the guns at dawning-- Miles away;When he heard them calling, calling-- Mount! nor stay: Quick, or all is lost; They've surprised and stormed the post, They push your routed host--Gallop! retrieve the day. 

House the horse in ermine-- For the foam-flake blewWhite through the red October; He thundered into view;They cheered him in the looming. Horseman and horse they knew. The turn of the tide began, The rally of bugles ran, He swung his hat in the van;The electric hoof-spark flew. 

Wreathe the steed and lead him-- For the charge he ledTouched and turned the cypress Into amaranths for the headOf Philip, king of riders, Who raised them from the dead. The camp (at dawning lost), By eve, recovered--forced, Rang with laughter of the hostAt belated Early fled. 

Shroud the horse in sable-- For the mounds they heap!There is firing in the Valley, And yet no strife they keep;It is the parting volley, It is the pathos deep. There is glory for the brave Who lead, and nobly save, But no knowledge in the graveWhere the nameless followers sleep. 

IN THE PRISON PEN1864

Listless he eyes the palisades And sentries in the glare;'Tis barren as a pelican-beach But his world is ended there. 

Nothing to do; and vacant hands Bring on the idiot-pain;He tries to think--to recollect, But the blur is on his brain. 

Around him swarm the plaining ghosts Like those on Virgil's shore--A wilderness of faces dim, And pale ones gashed and hoar. 

A smiting sun. No shed, no tree; He totters to his lair--A den that sick hands dug in earth Ere famine wasted there, Or, dropping in his place, he swoons, Walled in by throngs that press, Till forth from the throngs they bear him dead-- Dead in his meagreness. 

THE COLLEGE COLONEL

He rides at their head; A crutch by his saddle just slants in view, One slung arm is in splints, you see, Yet he guides his strong steed--how coldly too. 

He brings his regiment home-- Not as they filed two years before, But a remnant half-tattered, and battered, and worn, Like castaway sailors, who--stunned By the surf's loud roar, Their mates dragged back and seen no more--Again and again breast the surge, And at last crawl, spent, to shore. 

A still rigidity and pale-- An Indian aloofness lones his brow;He has lived a thousand yearsCompressed in battle's pains and prayers, Marches and watches slow. 

There are welcoming shouts, and flags; Old men off hat to the Boy, Wreaths from gay balconies fall at his feet, But to _him_--there comes alloy. 

It is not that a leg is lost, It is not that an arm is maimed, It is not that the fever has racked-- Self he has long disclaimed. 

But all through the Seven Days' Fight, And deep in the Wilderness grim, And in the field-hospital tent, And Petersburg crater, and dimLean brooding in Libby, there came-- Ah heaven!--what _truth_ to him. 

THE MARTYR_Indicative of the passion of the people on the15th of April, 1865_

Goon Friday was the day Of the prodigy and crime, When they killed him in his pity, When they killed him in his primeOf clemency and calm-- When with yearning he was filled To redeem the evil-willed, And, though conqueror, be kind; But they killed him in his kindness, In their madness and their blindness, And they killed him from behind. 

 There is sobbing of the strong, And a pall upon the land; But the People in their weeping Bare the iron hand; Beware the People weeping When they bare the iron hand. 

He lieth in his blood-- The father in his face;They have killed him, the Forgiver-- The Avenger takes his place, The Avenger wisely stern, Who in righteousness shall do What the heavens call him to, And the parricides remand; For they killed him in his kindness, In their madness and their blindness, And his blood is on their hand. 

 There is sobbing of the strong, And a pall upon the land; But the People in their weeping Bare the iron hand: Beware the People weeping When they bare the iron hand. 

REBEL COLOR-BEARERS AT SHILOH_A plea against the vindictive cry raised by civiliansshortly after the surrender at Appomattox_

The color-bearers facing deathWhite in the whirling sulphurous wreath, Stand boldly out before the line;Right and left their glances go, Proud of each other, glorying in their show;Their battle-flags about them blow, And fold them as in flame divine:Such living robes are only seenRound martyrs burning on the green--And martyrs for the Wrong have been. 

Perish their Cause! but mark the men--Mark the planted statues, thenDraw trigger on them if you can. 

The leader of a patriot-bandEven so could view rebels who so could stand; And this when peril pressed him sore, Left aidless in the shivered front of war-- Skulkers behind, defiant foes before, And fighting with a broken brand. The challenge in that courage rare--Courage defenseless, proudly bare--Never could tempt him; he could dareStrike up the leveled rifle there. 

Sunday at Shiloh, and the dayWhen Stonewall charged--McClellan's crimson May, And Chickamauga's wave of death, And of the Wilderness the cypress wreath-- All these have passed away. The life in the veins of Treason lags, Her daring color-bearers drop their flags, And yield. _Now_ shall we fire? Can poor spite be? Shall nobleness in victory less aspire Than in reverse? Spare Spleen her ire, And think how Grant met Lee. 

AURORA BOREALIS_Commemorative of the Dissolution of armies at the Peace_May, 1865

What power disbands the Northern Lights After their steely play?The lonely watcher feels an awe Of Nature's sway, As when appearing, He marked their flashed uprearing In the cold gloom-- Retreatings and advancings, (Like dallyings of doom), Transitions and enhancings, And bloody ray. 

The phantom-host has faded quite, Splendor and Terror gonePortent or promise--and gives way To pale, meek Dawn; The coming, going, Alike in wonder showing-- Alike the God, Decreeing and commandingThe million blades that glowed, The muster and disbanding-- Midnight and Morn. 

THE RELEASED REBEL PRISONERJune, 1865

Armies he's seen--the herds of war, But never such swarms of menAs now in the Nineveh of the North-- How mad the Rebellion then!

And yet but dimly he divines The depth of that deceit, And superstitution of vast pride Humbled to such defeat. 

Seductive shone the Chiefs in arms-- His steel the nearest magnet drew;Wreathed with its kind, the Gulf-weed drives-- 'Tis Nature's wrong they rue. 

His face is hidden in his beard, But his heart peers out at eye--And such a heart! like a mountain-pool Where no man passes by. 

He thinks of Hill--a brave soul gone; And Ashby dead in pale disdain;And Stuart with the Rupert-plume, Whose blue eye never shall laugh again. 

He hears the drum; he sees our boysFrom his wasted fields return;Ladies feast them on strawberries, And even to kiss them yearn. 

He marks them bronzed, in soldier-trim, The rifle proudly borne;They bear it for an heirloom home, And he--disarmed--jail-worn. 

Home, home--his heart is full of it; But home he never shall see, Even should he stand upon the spot: 'Tis gone!--where his brothers be. 

The cypress-moss from tree to tree Hangs in his Southern land;As weird, from thought to thought of his Run memories hand in hand. 

And so he lingers--lingers on In the City of the Foe--His cousins and his countrymen Who see him listless go. 

"FORMERLY A SLAVE"_An idealized Portrait, by E. Vedder, in the SpringExhibition of the National Academy, 1865_

The sufferance of her race is shown, And retrospect of life, Which now too late deliverance dawns upon; Yet is she not at strife. 

Her children's children they shall know The good withheld from her;And so her reverie takes prophetic cheer-- In spirit she sees the stir. 

Far down the depth of thousand years, And marks the revel shine;Her dusky face is lit with sober light, Sibylline, yet benign. 

ON THE SLAIN COLLEGIANS

Youth is the time when hearts are large, And stirring warsAppeal to the spirit which appeals in turn To the blade it draws. If woman incite, and duty show (Though made the mask of Cain), Or whether it be Truth's sacred cause, Who can aloof remainThat shares youth's ardor, uncooled by the snow Of wisdom or sordid gain?

The liberal arts and nurture sweet Which give his gentleness to man-- Train him to honor, lend him graceThrough bright examples meet--That culture which makes never wanWith underminings deep, but holds The surface still, its fitting place, And so gives sunniness to the faceAnd bravery to the heart; what troops Of generous boys in happiness thus bred-- Saturnians through life's Tempe led, Went from the North and came from the South, With golden mottoes in the mouth, To lie down midway on a bloody bed. 

Woe for the homes of the North, And woe for the seats of the South:All who felt life's spring in prime, And were swept by the wind of their place and time-- All lavish hearts, on whichever side, Of birth urbane or courage high, Armed them for the stirring wars-- Armed them--some to die. Apollo-like in pride. Each would slay his Python--caughtThe maxims in his temple taught-- Aflame with sympathies whose blazePerforce enwrapped him--social laws, Friendship and kin, and by-gone days--Vows, kisses--every heart unmoors, And launches into the seas of wars. What could they else--North or South?Each went forth with blessings givenBy priests and mothers in the name of Heaven; And honor in both was chief. Warred one for Right, and one for Wrong?So be it; but they both were young--Each grape to his cluster clung, All their elegies are sung. The anguish of maternal hearts Must search for balm divine;But well the striplings bore their fated parts (The heavens all parts assign)--Never felt life's care or cloy. Each bloomed and died an unabated Boy;Nor dreamed what death was--thought it mereSliding into some vernal sphere. They knew the joy, but leaped the grief, Like plants that flower ere comes the leaf--Which storms lay low in kindly doom, And kill them in their flush of bloom. 

AMERICA

IWhere the wings of a sunny Dome expandI saw a Banner in gladsome air--Starry, like Berenice's Hair--Afloat in broadened bravery there;With undulating long-drawn flow, As tolled Brazilian billows goVoluminously o'er the Line. The Land reposed in peace below; The children in their gleeWere folded to the exulting heart Of young Maternity. 

IILater, and it streamed in fight When tempest mingled with the fray, And over the spear-point of the shaft I saw the ambiguous lightning play. Valor with Valor strove, and died:Fierce was Despair, and cruel was Pride;And the lorn Mother speechless stood, Pale at the fury of her brood. 

IIIYet later, and the silk did wind Her fair cold form;Little availed the shining shroud, Though ruddy in hue, to cheer or warm. A watcher looked upon her low, and said--She sleeps, but sleeps, she is not dead. But in that sleeps contortion showedThe terror of the vision there-- A silent vision unavowed, Revealing earth's foundation bare, And Gorgon in her hidden place. It was a thing of fear to see So foul a dream upon so fair a face, And the dreamer lying in that starry shroud. 

IVBut from the trance she sudden broke-- The trance, or death into promoted life;At her feet a shivered yoke, And in her aspect turned to heaven No trace of passion or of strife--A clear calm look. It spake of pain, But such as purifies from stain--Sharp pangs that never come again-- And triumph repressed by knowledge meet, Power dedicate, and hope grown wise, And youth matured for age's seat--Law on her brow and empire in her eyes. So she, with graver air and lifted flag;While the shadow, chased by light, Fled along the far-drawn height, And left her on the crag. 

INSCRIPTION_For Graves at Pea Ridge, Arkansas_

Let none misgive we died amiss When here we strove in furious fight:Furious it was; nathless was this Better than tranquil plight, And tame surrender of the CauseHallowed by hearts and by the laws. We here who warred for Man and Right, The choice of warring never laid with us. There we were ruled by the traitor's choice. Nor long we stood to trim and poise, But marched and fell--victorious!

THE FORTITUDE OF THE NORTH_Under the Disaster of the Second Manassas_

They take no shame for dark defeat While prizing yet each victory won, Who fight for the Right through all retreat, Nor pause until their work is done. The Cape-of-Storms is proof to every throe; Vainly against that foreland beatWild winds aloft and wilder waves below:The black cliffs gleam through rents in sleetWhen the livid Antarctic storm-clouds glow. 

THE MOUND BY THE LAKE

The grass shall never forget this grave. When homeward footing it in the sun After the weary ride by rail, The stripling soldiers passed her door, Wounded perchance, or wan and pale, She left her household work undone--Duly the wayside table spread, With evergreens shaded, to regaleEach travel-spent and grateful one. So warm her heart--childless--unwed, Who like a mother comforted. 

ON THE SLAIN AT CHICKAMAUGA

Happy are they and charmed in life Who through long wars arrive unscarredAt peace. To such the wreath be given, If they unfalteringly have striven-- In honor, as in limb, unmarred. Let cheerful praise be rife, And let them live their years at ease, Musing on brothers who victorious died-- Loved mates whose memory shall ever please. 

And yet mischance is honorable too-- Seeming defeat in conflict justifiedWhose end to closing eyes is hid from view. The will, that never can relent--The aim, survivor of the bafflement, Make this memorial due. 

AN UNINSCRIBED MONUMENT_On one of the Battle-fields of the Wilderness_

Silence and solitude may hint (Whose home is in yon piney wood)What I, though tableted, could never tell--The din which here befell, And striving of the multitude. The iron cones and spheres of death Set round me in their rust, These, too, if just, Shall speak with more than animated breath. Thou who beholdest, if thy thought, Not narrowed down to personal cheer, Take in the import of the quiet here-- The after-quiet--the calm full fraught;Thou too wilt silent stand--Silent as I, and lonesome as the land. 

ON THE GRAVE OF A YOUNG CAVALRY OFFICERKILLED IN THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA

Beauty and youth, with manners sweet, and friends-- Gold, yet a mind not unenriched had heWhom here low violets veil from eyes. But all these gifts transcended be:His happier fortune in this mound you see. 

A REQUIEM_For Soldiers lost in Ocean Transports_

When, after storms that woodlands rue, To valleys comes atoning dawn, The robins blithe their orchard-sports renew; And meadow-larks, no more withdrawnCaroling fly in the languid blue;The while, from many a hid recess, Alert to partake the blessedness, The pouring mites their airy dance pursue. So, after ocean's ghastly gales, When laughing light of hoyden morning breaks, Every finny hider wakes-- From vaults profound swims up with glittering scales; Through the delightsome sea he sails, With shoals of shining tiny thingsFrolic on every wave that flings Against the prow its showery spray;All creatures joying in the morn, Save them forever from joyance torn, Whose bark was lost where now the dolphins play;Save them that by the fabled shore, Down the pale stream are washed away, Far to the reef of bones are borne; And never revisits them the light, Nor sight of long-sought land and pilot more; Nor heed they now the lone bird's flightRound the lone spar where mid-sea surges pour. 

COMMEMORATIVE OF A NAVAL VICTORY

Sailors there are of the gentlest breed, Yet strong, like every goodly thing;The discipline of arms refines, And the wave gives tempering. The damasked blade its beam can fling;It lends the last grave grace:The hawk, the hound, and sworded nobleman In Titian's picture for a king, Are of hunter or warrior race. 

In social halls a favored guest In years that follow victory won, How sweet to feel your festal fame In woman's glance instinctive thrown: Repose is yours--your deed is known, It musks the amber wine;It lives, and sheds a light from storied days Rich as October sunsets brown, Which make the barren place to shine. 

But seldom the laurel wreath is seen Unmixed with pensive pansies dark;There's a light and a shadow on every man Who at last attains his lifted mark-- Nursing through night the ethereal spark. Elate he never can be;He feels that spirit which glad had hailed his worth, Sleep in oblivion. --The sharkGlides white through the phosphorus sea. 

A MEDITATION

How often in the years that close, When truce had stilled the sieging gun, The soldiers, mounting on their works, With mutual curious glance have runFrom face to face along the fronting show, And kinsman spied, or friend--even in a foe. 

What thoughts conflicting then were shared, While sacred tenderness perforceWelled from the heart and wet the eye; And something of a strange remorseRebelled against the sanctioned sin of blood, And Christian wars of natural brotherhood. 

Then stirred the god within the breast-- The witness that is man's at birth;A deep misgiving undermined Each plea and subterfuge of earth;They felt in that rapt pause, with warning rife, Horror and anguish for the civil strife. 

Of North or South they reeked not then, Warm passion cursed the cause of war:Can Africa pay back this blood Spilt on Potomac's shore?Yet doubts, as pangs, were vain the strife to stay, And hands that fain had clasped again could slay. 

How frequent in the camp was seen The herald from the hostile one, A guest and frank companion there When the proud formal talk was done;The pipe of peace was smoked even 'mid the war, And fields in Mexico again fought o'er. 

In Western battle long they lay So near opposed in trench or pit, That foeman unto foeman called As men who screened in tavern sit:"You bravely fight" each to the other said--"Toss us a biscuit!" o'er the wall it sped. 

And pale on those same slopes, a boy-- A stormer, bled in noon-day glare;No aid the Blue-coats then could bring, He cried to them who nearest were, And out there came 'mid howling shot and shellA daring foe who him befriended well. 

Mark the great Captains on both sides, The soldiers with the broad renown--They all were messmates on the Hudson's marge, Beneath one roof they laid them down;And, free from hate in many an after pass, Strove as in school-boy rivalry of the class. 

A darker side there is; but doubt In Nature's charity hovers there:If men for new agreement yearn, Then old upbraiding best forbear:"The South's the sinner!" Well, so let it be;But shall the North sin worse, and stand the Pharisee?

O, now that brave men yield the sword, Mine be the manful soldier-view;By how much more they boldly warred, By so much more is mercy due:When Vicksburg fell, and the moody files marched out, Silent the victors stood, scorning to raise a shout. 

Poems From Mardi

WE FISH

We fish, we fish, we merrily swim, We care not for friend nor for foe. Our fins are stout, Our tails are out, As through the seas we go. 

Fish, Fish, we are fish with red gills; Naught disturbs us, our blood is at zero:We are buoyant because of our bags, Being many, each fish is a hero. We care not what is it, this life That we follow, this phantom unknown;To swim, it's exceedingly pleasant, -- So swim away, making a foam. This strange looking thing by our side, Not for safety, around it we flee:--Its shadow's so shady, that's all, -- We only swim under its lee. And as for the eels there above, And as for the fowls of the air, We care not for them nor their ways, As we cheerily glide afar!

We fish, we fish, we merrily swim, We care not for friend nor for foe: Our fins are stout, Our tails are out, As through the seas we go. 

INVOCATION

Ha, ha, gods and kings; fill high, one and all;Drink, drink! shout and drink! mad respond to the call!Fill fast, and fill full; 'gainst the goblet ne'er sin;Quaff there, at high tide, to the uttermost rim:-- Flood-tide, and soul-tide to the brim!

Who with wine in him fears? who thinks of his cares?Who sighs to be wise, when wine in him flares?Water sinks down below, in currents full slow;But wine mounts on high with its genial glow:-- Welling up, till the brain overflow!

As the spheres, with a roll, some fiery of soul, Others golden, with music, revolve round the pole;So let our cups, radiant with many hued wines, Round and round in groups circle, our Zodiac's Signs:-- Round reeling, and ringing their chimes!

Then drink, gods and kings; wine merriment brings;It bounds through the veins; there, jubilant sings. Let it ebb, then, and flow; wine never grows dim;Drain down that bright tide at the foam beaded rim:-- Fill up, every cup, to the brim!

DIRGE

We drop our dead in the sea, The bottomless, bottomless sea;Each bubble a hollow sigh, As it sinks forever and aye. 

We drop our dead in the sea, -- The dead reek not of aught;We drop our dead in the sea, -- The sea ne'er gives it a thought. 

Sink, sink, oh corpse, still sink, Far down in the bottomless sea, Where the unknown forms do prowl, Down, down in the bottomless sea. 

'Tis night above, and night all round, And night will it be with thee;As thou sinkest, and sinkest for aye, Deeper down in the bottomless sea. 

MARLENA

Far off in the sea is Marlena, A land of shades and streams, A land of many delights, Dark and bold, thy shores, Marlena;But green, and timorous, thy soft knolls, Crouching behind the woodlands. All shady thy hills; all gleaming thy springs, Like eyes in the earth looking at you. How charming thy haunts, Marlena!--Oh, the waters that flow through Onimoo;Oh, the leaves that rustle through Ponoo:Oh, the roses that blossom in Tarma. Come, and see the valley of Vina:How sweet, how sweet, the Isles from Hina:'Tis aye afternoon of the full, full moon, And ever the season of fruit, And ever the hour of flowers, And never the time of rains and gales, All in and about Marlena. Soft sigh the boughs in the stilly air, Soft lap the beach the billows there;And in the woods or by the streams, You needs must nod in the Land of Dreams. 

PIPE SONG

Care is all stuff:-- Puff! Puff!To puff is enough:-- Puff! PuffMore musky than snuff, And warm is a puff:-- Puff! PuffHere we sit mid our puffs, Like old lords in their ruffs, Snug as bears in their muffs:-- Puff! PuffThen puff, puff, puff, For care is all stuff, Puffed off in a puff-- Puff! Puff!

SONG OF YOOMY

Departed the pride, and the glory of Mardi:The vaunt of her isles sleeps deep in the sea, That rolls o'er his corse with a hush, His warriors bend over their spears, His sisters gaze upward and mourn. Weep, weep, for Adondo is dead! The sun has gone down in a shower; Buried in clouds the face of the moon;Tears stand in the eyes of the starry skies, And stand in the eyes of the flowers;And streams of tears are the trickling brooks, Coursing adown the mountains. -- Departed the pride, and the glory of Mardi: The vaunt of her isles sleeps deep in the sea. Fast falls the small rain on its bosom that sobs, -- Not showers of rain, but the tears of Oro. 

GOLD

We rovers bold, To the land of Gold, Over the bowling billows are gliding: Eager to toil, For the golden spoil, And every hardship biding. See! See!Before our prows' resistless dashesThe gold-fish fly in golden flashes! 'Neath a sun of gold, We rovers bold, On the golden land are gaining; And every night, We steer aright, By golden stars unwaning!All fires burn a golden glare:No locks so bright as golden hair! All orange groves have golden gushings; All mornings dawn with golden flushings!In a shower of gold, say fables old, A maiden was won by the god of gold! In golden goblets wine is beaming: On golden couches kings are dreaming! The Golden Rule dries many tears! The Golden Number rules the spheres!Gold, gold it is, that sways the nations:Gold! gold! the center of all rotations! On golden axles worlds are turning: With phosphorescence seas are burning! All fire-flies flame with golden gleamings! Gold-hunters' hearts with golden dreamings! With golden arrows kings are slain: With gold we'll buy a freeman's name!In toilsome trades, for scanty earnings, At home we've slaved, with stifled yearnings:No light! no hope! Oh, heavy woe!When nights fled fast, and days dragged slow. But joyful now, with eager eye, Fast to the Promised Land we fly: Where in deep mines, The treasure shines; Or down in beds of golden streams, The gold-flakes glance in golden gleams! How we long to sift, That yellow drift! Rivers! Rivers! cease your goings! Sand-bars! rise, and stay the tide! 'Till we've gained the golden flowing; And in the golden haven ride!

THE LAND OF LOVE

Hail! voyagers, hail!Whence e'er ye come, where'er ye rove, No calmer strand, No sweeter land, Will e'er ye view, than the Land of Love!

 Hail! voyagers, hail!To these, our shores, soft gales invite: The palm plumes wave, The billows lave, And hither point fix'd stars of light!

 Hail! voyagers, hail!Think not our groves wide brood with gloom; In this, our isle, Bright flowers smile:Full urns, rose-heaped, these valleys bloom. 

 Hail! voyagers, hail!Be not deceived; renounce vain things; Ye may not find A tranquil mind, Though hence ye sail with swiftest wings. 

 Hail! voyagers, hail!Time flies full fast; life soon is o'er; And ye may mourn, That hither borne, Ye left behind our pleasant shore. 

Poems From Clarel

DIRGE

Stay, Death, Not mine the Christus-wandWherewith to charge thee and command:I plead. Most gently hold the handOf her thou leadest far away;Fear thou to let her naked feetTread ashes--but let mosses sweetHer footing tempt, where'er ye stray. Shun Orcus; win the moonlit landBelulled--the silent meadows lone, Where never any leaf is blownFrom lily-stem in Azrael's hand. There, till her love rejoin her lowly(Pensive, a shade, but all her own)On honey feed her, wild and holy;Or trance her with thy choicest charm. And if, ere yet the lover's free, Some added dusk thy rule decree--That shadow only let it beThrown in the moon-glade by the palm. 

EPILOGUE_If Luther's day expand to Darwin's year, __Shall that exclude the hope--foreclose the fear?_

Unmoved by all the claims our times avow, The ancient Sphinx still keeps the porch of shade;And comes Despair, whom not her calm may cow, And coldly on that adamantine browScrawls undeterred his bitter pasquinade. But Faith (who from the scrawl indignant turns)With blood warm oozing from her wounded trust, Inscribes even on her shards of broken urnsThe sign o' the cross--_the spirit above the dust!_

 Yea, ape and angel, strife and old debate--The harps of heaven and dreary gongs of hell;Science the feud can only aggravate--No umpire she betwixt the chimes and knell:The running battle of the star and clodShall run forever--if there be no God. 

 Degrees we know, unknown in days before;The light is greater, hence the shadow more;And tantalized and apprehensive ManAppealing--Wherefore ripen us to pain?Seems there the spokesman of dumb Nature's train. 

 But through such strange illusions have they passedWho in life's pilgrimage have baffled striven--Even death may prove unreal at the last, And stoics be astounded into heaven. 

 Then keep thy heart, though yet but ill-resigned--Clarel, thy heart, the issues there but mind;That like the crocus budding through the snow--That like a swimmer rising from the deep--That like a burning secret which doth goEven from the bosom that would hoard and keep;Emerge thou mayst from the last whelming sea, And prove that death but routs life into victory.