0<r 
 
 _> 
 
 \H 
 
 E'SLl 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A 
 COLLECTION MADE BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 
 1854-1919 
 
 AND BEQUEATHED TO 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 1145.B5L7 
 
 Lines of battle and other poems 
 
 3 1924 021 973 502 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021973502 
 
LINES OF BATTLE 
 
LINES OF BATTLE 
 
 AND OTHER "POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL 
 
 SELECTED 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 M. A. DeWOLFE HOWE 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 MDCCCCXII 
 
COPYRIGHT, I 9 I 2 
 BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 A 
 
 76 
 
 off j> 
 
 THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY COPIES PRINTED AT 
 THE RIVERSIDE PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 
 NUMBER 6 
 
NOTE 
 
 To the poet's brother, the late Charles D'Wolf 
 Brownell of Bristol, Rhode Island, the editor 
 is indebted for many facts not otherwise access- 
 ible. Mrs. James T. Fields has kindly lent him 
 the poet's letters to her husband. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Farragut's Poet {Editor's Introduction) 1 
 
 The Bay Fight . . . . .29 
 
 The Battle of Charlestown . . 53 
 
 Annus Memorabilis . . . .56 
 
 Coming ...... 59 
 
 Let us alone . . . . .60 
 
 From " The March of the Regiment " 62 
 
 Hearts of Oak — An Epitaph . .63 
 
 Words that can be sung, etc. . . 66 
 
 One Word 68 
 
 Somnia Cceli ..... 72 
 
 Bury them . . . . . .82 
 
 The Battle Summers . . . 85 
 
 Suspiria Ensis . . . . .91 
 
 The River Fight . . . . 96 
 
 A War Study 110 
 
 vii 
 
Night-Quarters . . . . 112 
 
 Down ! . . . . . .115 
 
 Abraham Lincoln . . . . 117 
 
 An Extract from ".Eon " . . ■ 143 
 
 From " Gulf- Weed " . . .146 
 
 The Burial of the Dane . . .150 
 
 At Sea 153 
 
 Anacreontic . . . . .157 
 
 Presentiment . . . . .160 
 
 Midnight — A Lament . . .162 
 
 In Articulo Mortis . . .164 
 
 Qu'il Mourut . . . . .165 
 
 Mare non Clausum . . . .166 
 
FARRAGUT'S POET 
 
FARRAGUT'S POET 
 
 In the first year of the Civil War Haw- 
 thorne wrote to an English friend : ' ' Ten 
 thousand poetasters have tried, and tried in 
 vain to give us a rousing ' Scots wha hae 
 wi' Wallace bled.' If we fight no better 
 than we sing, may the Lord have mercy 
 upon us and upon the nation ! " Hawthorne 
 lived long enough to see that his country- 
 men, North and South, could fight. That 
 they could also sing about fighting was 
 perhaps less apparent until the war was 
 past. Naturally the country was more occu- 
 pied with shooting than with singing while 
 the conflict lasted ; and naturally the most 
 enduring poetic memorials of the period 
 sprang from ' ' remembered emotion. ' ' Yet 
 a few songs well worth the hearing were 
 sung in the very glow of battle. One singer 
 of them, Henry Howard Brownell, secured 
 from Dr. Holmes the tide of "Our Bat- 
 Ue Laureate." In the "Atlantic " article 
 
which gaveBrownell this name, Dr. Holmes 
 was willing even to write : ' ' If Drayton had 
 fought at Agincourt, if Campbell had held 
 a sabre at Hohenlinden, if Scott had been in 
 the saddle with Marmion, if Tennyson had 
 charged with the six hundred atBalaklava, 
 each of these poets might possibly have pic- 
 tured what he saw as faithfully and as fear- 
 fully as Mr. Brownell has painted the sea- 
 fights in which he took part as a combatant." 
 This is indeed unstinted praise, and cannot 
 fairly be dismissed as due to the enthusiasm 
 of a moment, when one places beside it the 
 words which Dr. Holmes wrote in a private, 
 unpublished letter more than ten years after 
 Brownell's' death: "Mr. Henry H. Brow- 
 nell was one of the most gifted men I have 
 ever met. The grasp of his mind, the vigor 
 of his imagination, the strength of his mem- 
 ory, and the way in which he used it in con- 
 versation, all made him a man to be remem- 
 bered among the most highly endowed 
 persons I have ever met, and I have known 
 most of our own most distinguished per- 
 sons, in this region at least. ' ' Again, of the 
 4 
 
man himself there is a winning picture 
 drawn in the concluding lines of Mr. Al- 
 drich's sonnet which has Brownell for its 
 subject : — 
 
 " Little did he crave 
 Men's praises ; modestly, with kindly mirth, 
 Not sad, nor bitter, he accepted fate — 
 Drank deep of life, knew books, and hearts of men, 
 Cities and camps, and war's immortal woe, 
 Yet bore through all (such virtue in him sate, 
 His spirit is not whiter now than then) 
 A simple, loyal nature pure as snow." 
 
 To find another poem by Mr. Aldrich, 
 devoted to the praise of Brownell' s work as 
 hearty as this praise of his personality ; to 
 find Lowell uttering words almost as enthu- 
 siastic as Dr. Holmes's about the " Norse- 
 hearted poems " they both admired; and to 
 note the present oblivion into which the 
 poet and his poems have certainly fallen, is 
 to ask one's self whether the best opinion 
 of Brownell' s contemporaries was entirely 
 wrong, or whether it has been our mistake 
 to permit fame to elude one whose hold upon 
 it seemed for a time so secure. A better 
 
acquaintance with the man and his work 
 may serve to throw some light upon the 
 whole matter. 
 
 In the first place Henry Howard Brownell 
 will be found to be one of the Americans 
 who can best stand the difficult, well-known 
 test of having their acquaintance made a 
 century or two before their birth . Six of his 
 lineal ancestors were Mayflower pilgrims. 
 Between their day and Brownell's, Captain 
 Benjamin Church, the conqueror of King 
 Philip, and three soldiers of the Bunker Hill 
 fight, transmitted their blood directly to him. 
 If the martial vigor of his spirit is thus to be 
 accounted for, it is no less easy to explain his 
 passion for the sea through his mother's de- 
 scent ; for she was of the sea -faring Rhode 
 Island family of De Wolf, which has learned 
 to spell its name in almost as many ways as 
 there are branches of the parent stock. The 
 poet's mother, moreover, was not without 
 poetic instincts and acquirements of her 
 own. His father, Dr. Pardon Brownell, was 
 a brother of Bishop Brownell of Connecticut, 
 and practised his profession of medicine in 
 6 
 
East Hartford, whither the family removed 
 about four years after the poet's birth at 
 Providence, Rhode Island, on February 6, 
 1820. 
 
 When there is only one anecdote to be 
 told of a poet's boyhood, it is well to have it 
 record his walking two miles every day, at 
 the age of six, to a neighbor's house, that he 
 might read a translation of Homer, in the 
 literal truthfulness of which he firmly be- 
 lieved. Brownell himself touches upon this 
 reminiscence in some lines written in early 
 manhood — lines which speak for a life- 
 long devotion and study : — 
 
 " ' Tis that beloved, blind old man, dear Homer ! 
 Who in the morning of this clouded life 
 (Its seventh summer yet not long completed) 
 Welcomed, as one might welcome a dear child, 
 My wandering footsteps to that glorious realm, 
 Which first he founded and shall rule forever." 
 
 For the rest, his boyhood, in a family of 
 spirited youths, does not appear to have 
 been exceptional. A good element of adven- 
 ture must have entered into their sports, if 
 7 
 
the later life of one of the brothers, Dr. 
 Clarence Melville Brownell, grew naturally 
 out of the East Hartford boyhood. It was 
 he who in 1859 went to Peru, crossed the 
 Andes, in the face of unspeakable difficult- 
 ies, alone, and from the head waters of the 
 Amazon followed the river to its mouth. In 
 exploring the sources of the White Nile a 
 few years later he met his death. Brownell' s 
 inheritance of a spirit that had much in com- 
 mon with his brother's is clearly evident in 
 his poems. In the years that followed his 
 brief clerkship in New York as a lad, and 
 his graduation at Washington (now Trinity) 
 College in 1841, it is impossible to ignore 
 the combining influences which made him 
 and his writings precisely what they were. 
 His poetical expression of himself did not 
 reach its fulness until the great provocation 
 of the Civil War arose to stab his spirit broad 
 awake. For twenty years his pursuits and 
 experiences were making him ready for what 
 he was to do. 
 
 Brownell's service as a teacher in Mobile, 
 Alabama , for some months immediately after 
 8 
 
leaving college, must have had its direct re- 
 sults, for in all of his later significant work 
 a knowledge of the South and a sympathy 
 with individual members of its society are 
 clearly to be noticed. It was natural enough 
 that this knowledge made him early and 
 eagerly an abolitionist. When his convic- 
 tions upon any subject were formed, they 
 were strong. An outward gentleness, which 
 won the love of his fellow-beings of every 
 condition, is recorded as one of his most 
 striking characteristics, but an inward vigor 
 is plainly betokened in a few words from a 
 foot-note to a poem, "The Famine," in 
 Brownell's first and, be it said, not extraor- 
 dinary volume of "Poems" (1847). The 
 lines are a scathing denunciation of ease and 
 content in lives of high place and common 
 comfort while other lives, by the million, are 
 starved. " Some very good people, (in their 
 way,) ' ' says the foot-note, ' ' have objected 
 to the ideas advanced in this piece that they 
 are too strongly worded. I only regret that 
 the insufficiency of our language, or my own 
 insufficiency in using it, has prevented me 
 9 
 
from expressing them more forcibly." 
 These are indeed the words of a man who 
 must bring to a cause like that of anti-slav- 
 ery all the vigor of his nature. But though 
 he learned at the South to hate slavery, he 
 learned also to love individual slave-holders. 
 In the preface to his first volume of war 
 poems, " Lyrics of a Day, or Newspaper 
 Poetry ,.by a Volunteer in the U. S. Service ' ' 
 (1864), he drew a clear distinction between 
 slave-holding and some holders of slaves; 
 and when his complete ' ' War Lyrics' ' were 
 published in 1866, he reprinted thispreface, 
 justifying it by saying in an unpublished 
 letter to James T. Fields, "I have had very 
 dear friends, Southerners, whom I should 
 like to see that I have not been actuated by 
 malice or hatred." Uncompromising as 
 many of his lines in condemnation of slavery 
 must have seemed to them, they could yet 
 hardly have failed to recognize the honest 
 sadness of such a stanza as this, written in 
 1864: — 
 
 " But a long lament for others, 
 Dying for darker Powers ! — 
 
 10 
 
Those that were once our brothers, 
 Whose children shall yet be ours." 
 
 Returning early from Mobile to Hartford, 
 Brownell set about the study of the law, was 
 admitted to the bar in 1844, and practised 
 his profession for several years in partner- 
 ship with one of his brothers. With this 
 brother also he was associated in the literary 
 work which soon took so much of his time 
 as his rather delicate health and his habit 
 of general study would permit; and in this 
 work one finds the influences which contrib- 
 uted to another element of his mature verse 
 — its abundance of allusion to mytholog- 
 ical and historical subjects. It was prosaic 
 employment for a poet to write a ' ' People's 
 Book of Ancient and Modern History"; 
 but the success with which Brownell did 
 this in 1851 is said to have led to the intro- 
 duction of subscription book-publishing in 
 Hartford , where it flourished for many years . 
 Immediately after this undertaking, he 
 wrote and helped his brother to edit exten- 
 sive works upon the pioneers and the native 
 races of North and South America. Thus 
 
 ii 
 
was his mind storing itself with a plentiful 
 knowledge of many things in the past. That 
 he was keenly alive at the same time to the 
 concerns of the present, and that he was not 
 forgetting to be a poet, became apparent by 
 the publication in 1855 of a small volume 
 which took its title from its longest poem, 
 ' ' Ephemeron, ' ' dealing intimately and vig- 
 orously with the condition of affairs in 
 Europe which led to the Crimean War. 
 The best of Brownell was still waiting for 
 our own war to call it forth. The spirit, 
 already present, which for its richer utter- 
 ances needed but the touch of a more per- 
 sonal emotion, is suggested by a stanza from 
 ' ' Ephemeron " : — 
 
 " God hath spoken, Christ hath risen, 
 
 Saints have dwelt and died below — 
 Yet the World is still a Prison, 
 Full of wrong, and full of woe ! " 
 
 As Brownell came to be a singer, not only 
 
 of warfare, but particularly of war by sea, 
 
 it is worth while to note yet another of two 
 
 influences which made him ready for his 
 
 12 
 
work. His inherited devotion to the sea was 
 stimulated by frequent voyages, which 
 served also to render him thrice familiar 
 with ships and the deep waters. His pre- 
 carious health took him more than once to 
 Cuba, and his friendship with James D. 
 Bulloch, the Southern sea-captain under 
 whose agency the Alabama was subsequently 
 secured for the Confederacy, gave him wel- 
 come opportunities for voyaging between 
 New York and New Orleans. To Bulloch, 
 sailing northward in 1859, the lines "At 
 Sea," were addressed. Those who know 
 something of sea-going for themselves must 
 feel that the poem reveals Brownell infallibly 
 as both a true son and a true singer of ships 
 and the sea. "The Burial of the Dane," 
 written a year earlier, makes the same reve- 
 lation, and has, besides, a quality of human 
 sympathy without which a poet is poor 
 indeed. 
 
 Fitted as Brownell was from the begin- 
 ning to sing a sailor's song of the Civil 
 War, it was to the other elements of his pre- 
 paredness that his first martial notes owed 
 13 
 
their quality. As early as in the Fremont 
 campaign of 1856 he had sung as one who 
 clearly foresees war. ' 'TheBattle of Charles- 
 town " — scornful and, in its conclusion, 
 ironically prophetic — celebrated the hang- 
 ing of John Brown. Before the storm burst, 
 the poet felt its inevitable approach, and, 
 while the Congress of 1860-61 was in ses- 
 sion/wrote his ' ' Annus Mirabilis. ' ' When 
 it was still nearer, in April of 1861, his voice 
 rang clear in the poem " Coming." Sum- 
 ter and the Baltimore 19th of April called 
 forth eager lyrics in which the poetic deed 
 hardly matched the patriotic will. As the 
 war went on, battles, individual acts of 
 valor and the broader martial and moral as- 
 pects of all that men were dying for, found 
 in Brownell their ready singer. The Hart- 
 ford newspapers gave his verses their first 
 currency, and they passed quickly from 
 place to place like coin of true metal. The 
 homely rhyme of the ' ' Old Cove " in a " dis- 
 mal swamp ' ' who flung a stick or a stone 
 ' ' at everybody as passed that road ' ' became 
 a byword in the mouths of men. The 
 
' ' Words that can be sung to the ' Hallelu- 
 jah Chorus ' " may not have been sung by 
 the thousands of soldiers who marched to 
 the music of ' ' John Brown's Body, ' ' but it 
 was not because Brownell failed to provide 
 words which almost sang themselves. 
 
 These and many other of Brownell 's lines 
 are those of one who could see the broader 
 strokes and more vivid colors in the picture 
 of war ; yet there is abundant proof in ' ' The 
 Battle Summers" that the finer lights and 
 shadows of the conflict did not escape him ; 
 for here the aspects of nature, scanned by an 
 eye sensitive to mark their subtlest changes, 
 are interpreted in cunning and delicately 
 poetic conjunction with the aspects of war. 
 
 Brownell, however, might have gone on 
 to the end of the war-time producing poems 
 that could bear no possible relation to his per- 
 sonal fortunes if he had not chanced one day 
 to make and print anonymously in the Hart- 
 ford ' ' Evening Press ' ' a skilfully rhymed 
 version of Farragut's ' ' General Orders ' ' to 
 his fleet before the attack upon New Or- 
 leans. By a happy chance the lines fell under 
 15 
 
Farragut's eye, and so delighted him that 
 he wrote a cordial letter of appreciation to 
 the unknown writer. From this a corres- 
 pondence between the two men sprang up, 
 and in the course of it Brownell expressed a 
 strong desire to see a naval battle. The re- 
 sult of this wish was that Farragut asked 
 Brownell to join his staff, and before the end 
 of 1863 secured his appointment to the un- 
 usual post of master's mate in the Navy, a 
 post from which he was soon advanced to 
 that of ensign, with special duties on the 
 Hartford as a secretary to its commander. 
 Three years later, when Brownell asked the 
 Admiral's permission to dedicate to him 
 the volume of ' ' War Lyrics, ' ' a portion of 
 the hearty response, signed ' 'Your affection- 
 ate friend, D. G. Farragut, "was this : "I 
 have always esteemed it one of the happy 
 events of my life that I was able to gratify 
 your enthusiastic desire to witness one of 
 the grandest as well as most terrible of all 
 nautical events, a great sea-fight ! And you 
 were particularly fortunate in its being one 
 in which all the ingenuity of our country 
 16 
 
had been employed to render it more ter- 
 rible by the use of almost every implement 
 of destruction known in the world, from the 
 old-fashioned smooth-bore gun to the most 
 diabolical contrivances for the destruction 
 of human life. And permit me to assure you 
 I have fully realized all my anticipations 
 that your pen would faithfully delineate the 
 scene and do justice to the subject." The 
 rest of Farragut's letter speaks for the de- 
 voted friendship which came to exist be- 
 tween the admiral and his poet ; and to ap- 
 preciate the fulness of BrownelTs oppor- 
 tunity one needs to remember not only that 
 he sailed on the Hartford and shared in her 
 triumphs, but also that his personal rela- 
 tions with Farragut were most intimate. 
 The uses he made of this opportunity and, 
 later, of his quickened powers, are clearly 
 revealed in many a page of his verse. 
 
 Of the poems written actually on board 
 the Hartford, the two which bear the earliest 
 date, March, 1864, are " The River Fight" 
 and "A War Study." Into " The River 
 Fight, ' ' the ' ' General Orders ' ' which had 
 17 
 
first brought Brownell to Farragut's notice 
 were woven. ' ' The Bay Fight ' ' which fol- 
 lowed it by five months is of the same char- 
 acter, and has the palpable advantage of 
 having been written from personal know- 
 ledge : yet the earlier poem tells of the naval 
 attack upon New Orleans with uncommon 
 spirit and power. The ' ' War Study ' ' may 
 be read for its own high beauty and for all 
 that it suggests of Farragut and of Brown- 
 ell's relations with him. 
 
 Farragut had already passed through 
 fierce sea-fights, and knew their full mean- 
 ing, but his fiercest battle was yet to come, 
 in the August following the March in which 
 the "War Study" was written, and at 
 Mobile Bay Brownell was to be with him. 
 In minor engagements he had already taken 
 part, so that in the memorable August of 
 1864, he was capable, it is reported, of aim- 
 ing a ' ' Sawyer ' ' so true with his own hand 
 and eye as to strike the edge of a parapet 
 at Fort Powell. In the fight at Mobile Bay, 
 Brownell was detailed to the special duty 
 of taking notes of the action in all parts of 
 18 
 
the ship, "a duty," in the words of Far- 
 ragut's report to the Navy Department, 
 "which he performed with coolness and 
 accuracy." The story is told that when 
 Brownell's fellow officers wondered after the 
 fight at the clearness and steadiness with 
 which his notes were jotted down, he re- 
 plied, "I did not want any of you picking 
 up my manuscript in case I was shot, and 
 saying I was afraid." On the same sheets 
 with the official notes, he is said to have 
 made lines of verse and poetical memoranda 
 which found their way almost word for 
 word into his great poem describing the 
 fight, and written while he was still on the 
 Hartford, almost before the air was cleared 
 of the thunder and smoke of battle. The 
 reader of "The Bay Fight " —entitled if 
 only by the circumstances of its production 
 to the place of honor in the following collec- 
 tion — may find for himself how much more 
 it is than a mere poetic description of naval 
 warfare as the vanishing generation knew 
 it — how often, indeed, and how completely 
 the poetry transcends the description. 
 l 9 
 
There is another long poem of Brovvnell's 
 which, in spite of moments when one could 
 wish it a little shorter, is worthy of perhaps 
 even a higher regard than ' ' The Bay Fight. ' ' 
 This is "Abraham Lincoln," written at 
 Bristol, Rhode Island, in the summer of 
 1865. With the few great threnodies for 
 the great President it seems to those who 
 know it that this one must be permanently 
 ranked. "I am rather beginning to like it, 
 and hope you will , " Brownell wrote to James 
 T. Fields before the poem was completed. 
 The editor of the ' ' Atlantic ' ' evidently re- 
 cognized its value, for thirteen pages of the 
 October number of 1865 were devoted to 
 its first publication. Its characterizations of 
 Lincoln, its poignant echoings of the nation's 
 grief, its lofty imaginative conclusion de- 
 scribing Lincoln's review on high of the 
 troops who did not return with their living 
 comrades to the Grand Review in Wash- 
 ington — these are enough to justify the 
 claim which lovers of the noble poem are 
 wont to make for Brownell's surpassing 
 power. 
 
 20 
 
Brownell resigned from the navy soon 
 after the fight at Mobile Bay, and most of 
 the remainder of his life was spent quiedy 
 between East Hartford and Bristol, where 
 he gave many summer days to sailing in his 
 new catboat the Hartford, built for him by 
 Herreshoff & Stone, and still remembered 
 in Narragansett waters. Never married, he 
 lived upon terms of devoted intimacy with 
 his mother, working steadily at a long un- 
 finished and unpublished poem "iEon." 
 It has been my privilege to see this work 
 which, from its character and contents, is 
 never likely to be published as a whole. 
 The poem deals with many themes, nature, 
 philosophy, religion, slavery, civil war, love 
 and death, — there is even a long disquisi- 
 tion and commentary on ' ' Edwards on the 
 Will . " The complete truth of Dr . Holmes ' s 
 words about Brownell' s mental equipment 
 is borne out by the remarkable work. Far 
 too often, indeed, the poetry is overlaid with 
 learning. But there are flashes of felicity 
 throughout. One of them, which by good 
 fortune can be published first in this place, 
 21 
 
shows how vividly in Brownell's mind lived 
 the memory of his battle days and of Far- 
 ragut: — 
 
 " When, the planks all red thereunder, 
 The vast gun-deck roared at height, 
 And aloft, in smoke and thunder, 
 Our Great Captain ruled the fight. 
 
 "(Comes afresh, sublimely sweeping, 
 All the stormy scene again — 
 The black cannon inboard leaping, 
 And the rush of iron rain ! 
 
 " The gray mist of death, engorging 
 
 Hull and shroud in thunder-strife — 
 And the narrow, slowly forging 
 Street of wild and furious life ! 
 
 " Ah, brave ship ! from truck to keelson 
 Manned with memories of the bold ! 
 Ours, that morn a nobler Nelson, 
 Ours, a grander Tordenskiold. )" 
 
 In all the field of martial verse it would be 
 hard to find a finer image of a war-ship in 
 action than 
 
 " the narrow, slowly forging 
 Street of wild and furious life." 
 22 
 
Still another extract from "iEon," hitherto 
 unpublished, will befound in the later pages. 
 Farragut, living and dead, never ceased 
 to hold an important place in Brownell's 
 life and thought. When the great Admiral 
 set out in 1867 on his triumphal European 
 cruise on the Franklin he had Brownell re- 
 appointed to his staff, and for a year and a 
 half the two men lived together in the closest 
 relations of friendship. After their return 
 and Farragut's death, Brownell made his 
 last appearance in public at a Reunion of 
 the ' ' Society of the Army and Navy of the 
 Gulf," at Newport in July of 1871, when 
 hereada poem, "Gulf Weed." Mostofit 
 does not differ greatly from the usual after- 
 dinner performance ; but where it deals most 
 directly with the memory of Farragut, as in 
 the passage printed in this volume, the singer 
 is stirred again to poetic achievement. A 
 single stanza seems to carry with it even a 
 sonorous premonition of Kipling : — 
 
 " The ships shall rot to dust, and the cannons scale 
 to rust, 
 
 2 3 
 
But it will not fade, that grand and pure Re- 
 nown, 
 While the navies ride upon the stormy tide, 
 While the long line-gales go thundering down ! " 
 
 In the year after the reading of this poem, 
 Brownell died at East Hartford , October 3 1 , 
 1872. His disease was cancer of the face, 
 and for the quiet courage with which he 
 endured its pains it is enough to say that on 
 one occasion he insisted upon watching the 
 surgeon's operation upon him, by means of 
 a mirror which he held in his own hand. 
 
 There has been no attempt, in writing 
 these pages and choosing the selections 
 which follow, to conceal a wish to show 
 Brownell at his best. More poems not re- 
 lating to the Civil War might have been 
 brought forward, for there are conspicuous 
 merits in some of these. But the merits of the 
 poet are less frequent in his renderings of 
 the themes of peace, and throughout the 
 book which has chiefly represented him, no 
 discriminating reader can fail to find and be 
 discouraged by really inferior and careless 
 work. If a rigorous sifting of his verses had 
 
 24 
 
been made before their publication in a book, 
 perhaps even if the book itself had in the first 
 instance received the title, "Lines of Bat- 
 tle," which Brownell urged strongly, but 
 too late, upon his publisher, when the print- 
 ing of ' ' War Lyrics ' ' was nearly finished, 
 the continuance of his fame might have been 
 surer. Small things sometimes determine 
 the fate of books, and of reputations. The 
 greater danger for Brownell from the first, 
 however, must have come through the mix- 
 ing of the dross with his gold. "To be 
 recognized far and wide as a great poet, to be 
 possible and receivable as a classic, Words- 
 worth," as Matthew Arnold so wisely said, 
 ' ' needs to be relieved of a great deal of the 
 poetical baggage which now encumbers 
 him." Brownell, in his own degree, has 
 stood conspicuously in the same need. The 
 contrasts between his worst and his best are 
 of the strongest. To those who realize what 
 his best could be, the wonder is that of its 
 own force it has not more successfully dis- 
 encumbered itself of its poetical baggage. 
 That it will still succeed in doing so is the 
 25 
 
belief of those for whom Mr. Aldrich spoke 
 when he spoke for himself in his ' ' Thre- 
 nody ' ' for Brownell : — 
 
 " You shall be known 
 When lesser men have had their day ; 
 Fame blossoms where true seed is sown, 
 Or soon or late, let Time wrong what it may. 
 
 "Unvexed by any dream of fame, 
 You smiled and bade the world pass by ; 
 But I — I turned, and saw a name 
 Shaping itself against the sky — 
 White star that rose amid the battle's flame ! " 
 
LINES OF BATTLE 
 
THE BAY FIGHT 
 
 (MOBILE BAY, AUGUST 5, 1864.) 
 
 On the forecastle, Ulf the Red 
 Watched the lashing of the ships — 
 "If the Serpent lie so far ahead, 
 
 We shall have hard work of it here," 
 Said he. 
 
 Longfellow's "Saga of King Olaf." 
 
 Three days through sapphire seas we sailed, 
 
 The steady Trade blew strong and free, 
 The Northern Light his banners paled, 
 The Ocean Stream our channels wet, 
 We rounded low Canaveral's lee, 
 And passed the isles of emerald set 
 In blue Bahama's turquoise sea. 
 
 By reef and shoal obscurely mapped, 
 And hauntings of the gray sea-wolf, 
 
 The palmy Western Key lay lapped 
 In the warm washing of the Gulf. 
 
 But weary to the hearts of all 
 
 The burning glare, the barren reach 
 29 
 
Of Santa Rosa's weathered beach, 
 And Pensacola's ruined wall. 
 
 And weary was the long patrol, 
 
 The thousand miles of shapeless strand, 
 
 From Brazos to San Bias that roll 
 Their drifting dunes of desert sand. 
 
 Yet, coast-wise as we cruised or lay, 
 The land-breeze still at nightfall bore, 
 
 By beach and fortress-guarded bay, 
 Sweet odors from the enemy's shore, 
 
 Fresh from the forest solitudes, 
 
 Unchallenged of his sentry lines — 
 
 The bursting of his cypress buds, 
 
 And the warm fragrance of his pines. 
 
 Ah, never braver bark and crew, 
 Nor bolder Flag a foe to dare, 
 
 Had left a wake on ocean blue 
 
 Since Lion-Heart sailed Trenc-le-mer ! 
 
 But little gain by that dark ground 
 
 Was ours, save, sometime, freer breath 
 
 For friend or brother strangely found, 
 'Scaped from the drear domain of death. 
 
 3° 
 
And little venture for the bold, 
 Or laurel for our valiant Chief, 
 Save some blockaded British thief, 
 
 Full fraught with murder in his hold, 
 
 Caught unawares at ebb or flood — 
 Or dull bombardment, day by day, 
 With fort and earth-work, far away, 
 
 Low couched in sullen leagues of mud. 
 
 A wear}' time, — but to the strong 
 The day at last, as ever, came ; 
 
 And the volcano, laid so long, 
 
 Leaped forth in thunder and in flame! 
 
 " Man your starboard battery ! " 
 Kimberly shouted — 
 The ship, with her hearts of oak, 
 Was going, mid roar and smoke, 
 On to victory ! 
 None of us doubted, 
 No, not our dying — 
 Farragut's Flag was flying ! 
 
 Gaines growled low on our left, 
 Morgan roared on our right 
 Before us, gloomy and fell, 
 
 3 1 
 
With breath like the fume of hell, 
 Lay the Dragon of iron shell, 
 Driven at last to the fight ! 
 
 Ha, old ship ! do they thrill, 
 The brave two hundred scars 
 You got in the River-Wars ? 
 
 That were leeched with clamorous skill, 
 ( Surgery savage and hard, ) 
 
 Splinted with bolt and beam, 
 
 Probed in scarfing and seam, 
 Rudely linted and tarred 
 
 With oakum and boiling pitch, 
 
 And sutured with splice and hitch, 
 At the Brooklyn Navy- Yard ! 
 
 Our lofty spars were down, 
 To bide the battle's frown, 
 (Wont of old renown) — 
 But every ship was drest 
 In her bravest and her best, 
 
 As if for a July day ; 
 Sixty flags and three, 
 
 As we floated up the bay — 
 Every peak and mast-head flew 
 The brave Red, White, and Blue — 
 
 We were eighteen ships that day. 
 
 3 2 
 
With hawsers strong and taut, 
 The weaker lashed to port, 
 
 On we sailed, two by two — 
 That if either a bolt should feel 
 Crash through caldron or wheel, 
 Fin of bronze or sinew of steel, 
 
 Her mate might bear her through. 
 
 Steadily nearing the head, 
 The great Flag-Ship led, 
 
 Grandest of sights ! 
 On her lofty mizen flew 
 Our Leader's dauntless Blue, 
 
 That had waved o'er twenty fights — 
 So we went, with the first of the tide, 
 
 Slowly, mid the roar 
 
 Of the Rebel guns ashore 
 And the thunder of each full broadside. 
 
 Ah, how poor the prate 
 Of statute and state 
 
 We once held with these fellows — 
 Here, on the flood's pale-green, 
 
 Hark how he bellows, 
 
 Each bluff old Sea-Lawyer ! 
 Talk to them, Dahlgren, 
 
 Parrott, and Sawyer ! 
 
 33 
 
On, in the whirling shade 
 
 Of the cannon's sulphury breath, 
 We drew to the Line of Death 
 
 That our devilish Foe had laid — 
 
 Meshed in a horrible net, 
 And baited villanous well, 
 
 Right in our path were set 
 Three hundred traps of hell ! 
 
 And there, O sight forlorn ! 
 There, while the cannon 
 
 Hurtled and thundered — 
 (Ah, what ill raven 
 Flapped o'er the ship that morn ! ) — ■ 
 Caught by the under-death, 
 In the drawing of a breath 
 Down went dauntless Craven, 
 He and his hundred ! 
 
 A moment we saw her turret, 
 
 A little heel she gave, 
 And a thin white spray went o'er her, 
 
 Like the crest of a breaking wave — 
 In that great iron coffin, 
 
 The channel for their grave, 
 
 The fort their monument, 
 
 34 
 
(Seen afar in the offing,) 
 Ten fathom deep lie Craven 
 And the bravest of our brave. 
 
 Then, in that deadly track, 
 
 A little the ships held back, 
 Closing up in their stations — 
 
 There are minutes that fix the fate 
 Of battles and of nations, 
 (Christening the generations,) 
 
 When valor were all too late, 
 
 If a moment's doubt be harbored — 
 
 From the main-top, bold and brief, 
 
 Came the word of our grand old Chief — 
 " Go on ! " 'twas all he said — 
 Our helm was put to starboard, 
 And the Hartford passed ahead . 
 
 Ahead lay the Tennessee, 
 
 On our starboard bow he lay, 
 With his mail-clad consorts three, 
 
 (The rest had run up the Bay) — 
 There he was, belching flame from his bow, 
 And the steam from his throat's abyss 
 Was a Dragon's maddened hiss — 
 
 In sooth a most cursed craft ! — 
 
 35 
 
In a sullen ring at bay 
 By the Middle Ground they lay, 
 Raking us fore and aft. 
 
 Trust me, our berth was hot, 
 Ah, wickedly well they shot ; 
 
 How their death-bolts howled and stung ! 
 And the water-batteries played 
 With their deadly cannonade 
 
 Till the air around us rung ; 
 
 So the battle raged and roared — 
 
 Ah, had you been aboard 
 
 To have seen the fight we made ! 
 
 How they leaped, the tongues of flame, 
 
 From the cannon's fiery lip ! 
 How the broadsides, deck and frame, 
 
 Shook the great ship ! 
 
 And how the enemy's shell 
 
 Came crashing, heavy and oft, 
 Clouds of splinters flying aloft 
 
 And falling in oaken showers — 
 But ah, the pluck of the crew ! 
 
 Had you stood on that deck of ours, 
 You had seen what men may do. 
 
 36 
 
Still, as the fray grew louder, 
 
 Boldly they worked and well ; 
 Steadily came the powder, 
 
 Steadily came the shell. 
 And if tackle or truck found hurt, 
 
 Quickly they cleared the wreck ; 
 And the dead were laid to port, 
 
 All a-row, on our deck. 
 
 Never a nerve that failed, 
 
 Never a cheek that paled, 
 Not a tinge of gloom or pallor — 
 
 There was bold Kentucky's grit, 
 And the old Virginian valor, 
 
 And the daring Yankee wit. 
 
 There were blue eyes from turfy Shannon, 
 There were black orbs from palmy Niger - 
 
 But there, alongside the cannon, 
 Each man fought like a tiger ! 
 
 A little, once, it looked ill, 
 
 Our consort began to burn — 
 They quenched the flames with a will, 
 But our men were falling still, 
 
 And still the fleet was astern. 
 
 37 
 
Right abreast of the Fort 
 
 In an awful shroud they lay, 
 Broadsides thundering away, 
 
 And lightning from every port — 
 Scene of glory and dread ! 
 
 A storm-cloud all aglow 
 With flashes of fiery red — 
 
 The thunder raging below, 
 
 And the forest of flags o'erhead ! 
 
 So grand the hurly and roar, 
 
 So fiercely their broadsides blazed, 
 
 The regiments fighting ashore 
 Forgot to fire as they gazed. 
 
 There, to silence the Foe, 
 
 Moving grimly and slow, 
 They loomed in that deadly wreath, 
 
 Where the darkest batteries frowned - 
 
 Death in the air all round, 
 And the black torpedoes beneath ! 
 
 And now, as we looked ahead, 
 
 All for'ard, the long white deck 
 Was growing a strange dull red ; 
 But soon, as once and agen 
 Fore and aft we sped, 
 
 38 
 
(The firing to guide or check,) 
 You could hardly choose but tread 
 
 On the ghastly human wreck, 
 (Dreadful gobbet and shred 
 
 That a minute ago were men !) 
 
 Red, from main-mast to bitts ! 
 
 Red, on bulwark and wale — 
 Red, by combing and hatch — 
 
 Red, o'er netting and rail ! 
 
 And ever, with steady con, 
 The ship forged slowly by — 
 
 And ever the crew fought on, 
 
 And their cheers rang loud and high. 
 
 Grand was the sight to see 
 
 How by their guns they stood, 
 Right in front of our dead 
 Fighting square abreast — 
 Each brawny arm and chest 
 All spotted with black and red, 
 Chrism of fire and blood ! 
 
 Worth our watch, dull and sterile, 
 Worth all the weary time — 
 
 Worth the woe and the peril, 
 To stand in that strait sublime ! 
 
 39 
 
Fear ? A forgotten form ! 
 
 Death ? A dream of the eyes ! 
 We were atoms in God's great storm 
 
 That roared through the angry skies. 
 
 One only doubt was ours, 
 
 One only dread we knew — 
 Could the day that dawned so well 
 Go down for the Darker Powers ? 
 
 Would the fleet get through ? 
 And ever the shot and shell 
 Came with the howl of hell, 
 The splinter-clouds rose and fell, 
 
 And the long line of corpses grew — 
 Would the fleet win through ? 
 
 They are men that never will fail, 
 
 (How aforetime they 've fought !) 
 But Murder may yet prevail — 
 
 They may sink as Craven sank. 
 Therewith one hard, fierce thought, 
 Burning on heart and lip, 
 Ran like fire through the ship — 
 Fight her, to the last plank ! 
 
 A dimmer Renown might strike 
 If Death lay square alongside — 
 40 
 
But the Old Flag has no like, 
 
 She must fight, whatever betide — 
 
 When the War is a tale of old, 
 
 And this day's story is told, 
 
 They shall hear how the Hartford died ! 
 
 But as we ranged ahead, 
 
 And the leading ships worked in, 
 
 Losing their hope to win 
 The enemy turned and fled — 
 
 And one seeks a shallow reach, 
 
 And another, winged in her flight, 
 
 Our mate, brave Jouett, brings in — 
 
 And one, all torn in the fight, 
 Runs for a wreck on the beach, 
 
 Where her flames soon fire the night. 
 
 And the Ram, when well up the Bay, 
 
 And we looked that our stems should meet, 
 (He had us fair for a prey,) 
 Shifting his helm midway, 
 
 Sheered off and ran for the fleet ; 
 There, without skulking or sham, 
 
 He fought them, gun for gun, 
 And ever he sought to ram, 
 
 But could finish never a one. 
 
 4i 
 
From the first of the iron shower 
 Till we sent our parting shell, 
 
 'Twas just one savage hour 
 
 Of the roar and the rage of hell. 
 
 With the lessening smoke and thunder, 
 Our glasses around we aim — 
 
 What is that burning yonder ? 
 
 Our Philippi, — aground and in flame ! 
 
 Below, 'twas still all a-roar, 
 As the ships went by the shore, 
 
 But the fire of the Fort had slacked, 
 (So fierce their volleys had been) — 
 And now, with a mighty din, 
 The whole fleet came grandly in, 
 
 Though sorely battered and wracked. 
 
 So, up the Bay we ran, 
 
 The Flag to port and ahead ; 
 
 And a pitying rain began 
 
 To wash the lips of our dead. 
 
 A league from the Fort we lay, 
 
 And deemed that the end must lag ; 
 
 When lo ! looking down the Bay, 
 There flaunted the Rebel Rag — 
 
 42 
 
The Ram is again underway 
 And heading dead for the Flag ! 
 
 Steering up with the stream, 
 Boldly his course he lay, 
 Though the fleet all answered his tire, 
 And, as he still drew nigher, 
 Ever on bow and beam 
 
 Our Monitors pounded away — 
 How the Chicasaw hammered away ! 
 
 Quickly breasting the wave, 
 
 Eager the prize to win, 
 First of us all the brave 
 
 Monongahela went in 
 Under full head of steam — 
 Twice she struck him abeam, 
 Till her stem was a sorry work, 
 
 (She might have run on a crag !) 
 The Lackawana hit fair, 
 He flung her aside like cork, 
 
 And still he held for the Flag. 
 
 High in the mizen shroud, 
 
 (Lest the smoke his sight o'erwhelm,) 
 Our Admiral's voice rang loud, 
 
 " Hard-a-starboard your helm ! 
 
 43 
 
Starboard ! and run him down ! " 
 
 Starboard it was — and so, 
 Like a black squall's lifting frown, 
 Our mighty bow bore down 
 
 On the iron beak of the Foe. 
 
 We stood on the deck together, 
 Men that had looked on death 
 
 In battle and stormy weather — 
 Yet a little we held our breath, 
 When, with the hush of death, 
 
 The great ships drew together. 
 
 Our Captain strode to the bow, 
 
 Drayton, courtly and wise, 
 
 Kindly cynic, and wise, 
 (You hardly had known him now, 
 
 The flame of fight in his eyes !) 
 His brave heart eager to feel 
 How the oak would tell on the steel ! 
 
 But, as the space grew short, 
 A little he seemed to shun us, 
 Out peered a form grim and lanky, 
 
 And a voice yelled — " Hard-a-port ! 
 Hard-a-port ! — here 's the damned Yankee 
 Coming right down on us ! " 
 
 44 
 
He sheered, but the ships ran foul 
 With a gnarring shudder and growl — 
 
 He gave us a deadly gun ; 
 But as he passed in his pride, 
 (Rasping right alongside !) 
 
 The Old Flag, in thunder tones, 
 Poured in her port broadside, 
 Rattling his iron hide, 
 
 And cracking his timber bones ! 
 
 Just then, at speed on the Foe, 
 
 With her bow all weathered and brown, 
 
 The great Lackawana came down, 
 Full tilt, for another blow ; 
 We were forging ahead, 
 
 She reversed — but, for all our pains, 
 Rammed the old Hartford, instead, 
 
 Just for'ard the mizzen chains ! 
 
 Ah ! how the masts did buckle and bend, 
 
 And the stout hull ring and reel, 
 As she took us right on end ! 
 
 (Vain were engine and wheel, 
 
 She was under full steam) — 
 With the roar of a thunder-stroke 
 Her two thousand tons of oak 
 
 Brought up on us, right abeam ! 
 
 45 
 
A wreck, as it looked, we lay — 
 (Rib and plankshear gave way 
 
 To the stroke of that giant wedge !) 
 Here, after all, we go — 
 The old ship is gone ! — ah, no, 
 
 But cut to the water's edge. 
 
 Never mind, then — at him again ! 
 
 His flurry now can't last long ; 
 He '11 never again see land — 
 Try that on htm, Marchand ! 
 
 On him again, brave Strong ! 
 
 Heading square at the hulk, 
 Full on his beam we bore ; 
 
 But the spine of the huge Sea-Hog 
 
 Lay on the tide like a log, 
 He vomited flame no more. 
 
 By this, he had found it hot — 
 Half the fleet, in an angry ring, 
 Closed round the hideous Thing, 
 
 Hammering with solid shot, 
 
 And bearing down, bow on bow — 
 He has but a minute to choose ; 
 
 Life or renown ? — which now 
 Will the Rebel Admiral lose ? 
 46 
 
Cruel, haughty, and cold, 
 
 He ever was strong and bold — 
 
 Shall he shrink from a wooden stem ? 
 He will think of that brave band 
 He sank in the Cumberland — 
 
 Aye, he will sink like them. 
 
 Nothing left but to fight 
 Boldly his last sea-fight ! 
 
 Can he strike ? By heaven, 'tis true ! 
 
 Down comes the traitor Blue, 
 And up goes the captive White ! 
 
 Up went the White ! Ah then 
 The hurrahs that, once and agen, 
 Rang from three thousand men 
 
 All flushed and savage with fight ! 
 Our dead lay cold and stark, 
 But our dying, down in the dark, 
 
 Answered as best they might — 
 Lifting their poor lost arms, 
 
 And cheering for God and Right ! 
 
 Ended the mighty noise, 
 Thunder of forts and ships. 
 Down we went to the hold — 
 
 47 
 
O, our dear dying boys ! 
 
 How we pressed their poor brave lips, 
 
 (Ah, so pallid and cold !) 
 And held their hands to the last, 
 
 (Those that had hands to hold). 
 
 Still thee, O woman heart ! 
 
 (So strong an hour ago) — 
 If the idle tears must start, 
 
 'Tis not in vain they flow. 
 
 They died, our children dear, 
 
 On the drear berth deck they died ; 
 
 Do not think of them here — 
 
 Even now their footsteps near 
 
 The immortal, tender sphere — 
 
 (Land of love and cheer ! 
 Home of the Crucified !) 
 
 And the glorious deed survives. 
 
 Our threescore, quiet and cold, 
 Lie thus, for a myriad lives 
 
 And treasure-millions untold — 
 (Labor of poor men's lives, 
 Hunger of weans and wives, 
 
 Such is war -wasted gold.) 
 48 
 
Our ship and her fame to-day 
 Shall float on the storied Stream, 
 
 When mast and shroud have crumbled away 
 And her long white deck is a dream. 
 
 One daring leap in the dark, 
 
 Three mortal hours, at the most — 
 
 And hell lies stiff" and stark 
 
 On a hundred leagues of coast. 
 
 For the mighty Gulf is ours — 
 The Bay is lost and won, 
 An Empire is lost and won ! 
 Land, if thou yet hast flowers, 
 Twine them in one more wreath 
 
 Of tenderest white and red, 
 (Twin buds of glory and death !) 
 For the brows of our brave dead — 
 For thy Navy's noblest Son. 
 
 Joy, O Land, for thy sons, 
 
 Victors by flood and field ! 
 The traitor walls and guns 
 
 Have nothing left but to yield — 
 
 (Even now they surrender !) 
 
 And the ships shall sail once more, 
 And the cloud of war sweep on 
 
 49 
 
To break on the cruel shore — 
 But Craven is gone, 
 He and his hundred are gone. 
 
 The flags flutter up and down 
 At sunrise and twilight dim, 
 
 The cannons menace and frown - 
 But never again- for him, 
 Him and the hundred. 
 
 The Dahlgrens are dumb, 
 Dumb are the mortars — 
 
 Never more shall the drum 
 Beat to colors and quarters — 
 The great guns are silent. 
 
 O brave heart and loyal ! 
 Let all your colors dip — 
 Mourn him, proud Ship ! 
 
 From main deck to royal. 
 God rest our Captain, 
 Rest our lost hundred. 
 
 Droop, flag and pennant ! 
 
 What is your pride for ? 
 
 Heaven, that he died for, 
 Rest our Lieutenant, 
 
 Rest our brave threescore. 
 50 
 
O Mother Land ! this weary life 
 We led, we lead, is 'long of thee ; 
 
 Thine the strong agony of strife, 
 And thine the lonely sea. 
 
 Thine the long decks all slaughter-sprent, 
 
 The weary rows of cots that lie 
 With wrecks of strong men, marred and rent, 
 
 'Neath Pensacola's sky. 
 
 And thine the iron caves and dens 
 
 Wherein the flame our war-fleet drives; 
 
 The fiery vaults, whose breath is men's 
 Most dear and precious lives. 
 
 Ah, ever, when with storm sublime 
 Dread Nature clears our murky air, 
 
 Thus in the crash of falling crime 
 Some lesser guilt must share. 
 
 Full red the furnace fires must glow 
 That melt the ore of mortal kind : 
 
 The Mills of God are grinding slow, 
 But ah, how close they grind ! 
 
 To-day, the Dahlgren and the drum 
 Are dread Apostles of his Name ; 
 
 5 1 
 
His Kingdom here can only come 
 By chrism of blood and flame. 
 
 Be strong : already slants the gold 
 
 Athwart these wild and stormy skies ; 
 
 From out this blackened waste, behold, 
 What happy homes shall rise ! 
 
 But see thou well no traitor gloze, 
 
 No striking hands with Death and Shame, 
 
 Betray the sacred blood that flows 
 So freely for thy name. 
 
 And never fear a victor foe — 
 
 Thy children's hearts are strong and high ; 
 Nor mourn too fondly — well they know 
 
 On deck or field to die. 
 
 Nor shalt thou want one willing breath, 
 Though, ever smiling round the brave, 
 
 The blue sea bear us on to death, 
 The green were one wide grave. 
 
 U. S. Flagship Hartford, Mobile Bay, 
 August, 1864. 
 
THE BATTLE OF CHARLESTOWN 
 
 (DECEMBER 2, 1859.) 
 
 Fresh palms for the Old Dominion ! 
 
 New peers for the valiant Dead ! 
 Never hath showered her sunshine 
 
 On a field of doughtier dread — 
 Heroes in buff three thousand, 
 
 And a single scarred gray head ! 
 
 Fuss, and feathers, and flurry — 
 Clink, and rattle, and roar — 
 
 The old man looks around him 
 On meadow and mountain hoar; 
 
 The place, he remarks, is pleasant, 
 I had not seen it before. 
 
 Form, in your boldest order, 
 Let the people press no nigher ! 
 
 Would ye have them hear to his words — 
 The words that may spread like fire ? 
 
 53 
 
'Tis a right smart chance to test him — 
 (Here we are at the gallows-tree,) 
 
 So knot the noose — pretty tightly — 
 Bandage his eyes — and we '11 see, 
 
 (For we'll keep him waiting a little,) 
 If he tremble in nerve or knee. 
 
 There, in a string, we 've got him ! 
 
 (Shall the music bang and blow ?) 
 The chivalry wheels and marches, 
 
 And airs its valor below. 
 
 Look hard in the blindfold visage, 
 (He can't look back,) and inquire, 
 
 (He has stood there nearly a quarter,) 
 If he does n't begin to tire ? 
 
 Not yet ! how long will he keep us, 
 
 To see if he quail or no ? 
 I reckon it 's no use waiting, 
 
 And 'tis time that we had the show. 
 
 For the trouble — we can't see why — 
 Seems with us and not with him, 
 
 As he stands 'neath the autumn sky, 
 So strangely solemn and dim ! 
 
 54 
 
But high let our standard flout it ! 
 
 " Sic semper " — the drop comes down- 
 And, (woe to the rogues that doubt it !) 
 
 There 's an end of old John Brown ! 
 
 December 5th, 1859. 
 
ANNUS MEMORABILIS 
 
 (CONGRESS, 1860-61) 
 
 Stand strong and calm as Fate ! not a breath of 
 scorn or hate — 
 Of taunt for the base, or of menace for the 
 strong — 
 Since our fortunes must be sealed on that old and 
 famous Field, 
 Where the Right is set in battle with the 
 Wrong. 
 
 'Tis coming, with the loom of Khamsin or Simoom, 
 The tempest that shall try if we are of God or 
 no — 
 Its roar is in the sky, — and they there be which 
 cry, 
 Let us cower, and the storm may over-blow. 
 
 Now, nay ! stand firm and fast ! (that was a spiteful 
 blast !) 
 This is not a war of men, but of Angels Good 
 and 111 — 
 
 56 
 
'Tis hell that storms at heaven — 'tis the black 
 and deadly Seven, 
 Sworn 'gainst the Shining Ones to work their 
 damned will ! 
 
 How the Ether glooms and burns, as the tide of 
 combat turns, 
 
 And the smoke and dust above it whirl and float ! 
 It eddies and it streams — and, certes, oft it seems 
 
 As the Sins had the Seraphs fairly by the throat. 
 
 But we all have read, (in that Legend grand and 
 dread,) 
 How Michael and his host met the Serpent and 
 his crew — 
 Naught has reached us of the Fight — but, if I 
 have dreamed aright, 
 'Twas a loud one and a long, as ever thundered 
 through ! 
 
 Right stiffly, past a doubt, the Dragon fought it out, 
 And his Angels, each and all, did for Tophet 
 their devoir — 
 There was creak of iron wings, and whirl of scor- 
 pion stings, 
 Hiss of bifid tongues, and the Pit in full uproar ! 
 
 57 
 
But, naught thereof enscrolled, in one brief line 
 'tis told, 
 (Calm as dew the Apocalyptic Pen,) 
 That on the Infinite Shore their place was found no 
 more. 
 God send the like on this our earth. Amen. 
 
 January 6th, 1861. 
 
COMING 
 
 (APRIL, 1861.) 
 
 \Vorld, art thou 'ware of a storm ? 
 
 Hark to the ominous sound, 
 How the far-off gales their battle form, 
 
 And the great sea swells feel ground ! 
 
 It comes, the Typhoon of Death — 
 
 Near and nearer it comes ! 
 The horizon thunder of cannon-breath 
 
 And the roar of angry drums ! 
 
 Hurtle, Terror sublime! 
 
 Swoop o'er the Land, to-day — 
 So the mist of wrong and crime, 
 The breath of our Evil Time, 
 
 Be swept, as by fire, away ! 
 
 59 
 
LET US ALONE 
 
 "All we ask is to be let alone." 
 
 As vonce I valked by a dismal svamp, 
 There sot an Old Cove in the dark and damp, 
 And at everybody as passed that road 
 A stick or a stone this Old Cove throwed. 
 And venever he flung his stick or his stone, 
 He 'd set up a song of " Let me alone." 
 
 " Let me alone, for I loves to shy 
 
 These bits of things at the passers by — 
 
 Let me alone, for I 've got your tin 
 
 And lots of other traps snugly in — 
 
 Let me alone, I 'm riggin' a boat 
 
 To grab votever you 've got afloat — 
 
 In a veek or so I expects to come 
 
 And turn you out of your 'ouse and 'ome — 
 
 I 'm a quiet Old Cove," says he, vith a groan : 
 
 " All I axes is — Let me alone." 
 
 Just then came along, on the self-same vay, 
 Another Old Cove, and began for to say — 
 " Let you alone ! That 's comin' it strong ! — 
 60 
 
You 've ben let alone — a darned sight too long — 
 
 Of all the sarce that ever I heerd ! 
 
 Put down that stick ! (You may well look skeered.) 
 
 Let go that stone ! If you once show fight, 
 
 I '11 knock you higher than ary kite. 
 
 You must hev a lesson to stop your tricks, 
 
 And cure you of shying them stones and sticks — 
 
 And I '11 hev my hardware back and my cash, 
 
 And knock your scow into tarnal smash ; 
 
 And if ever I catches you round my ranch, 
 
 I '11 string you up to the nearest branch. 
 
 The best you can do is to go to bed, 
 
 And keep a decent tongue in your head ; 
 
 For I reckon, before you and I are done, 
 
 You '11 wish you had let honest folks alone." 
 
 The Old Cove stopped, and the t 'other Old Cove 
 He sot quite still in his cypress grove, 
 And he looked at his stick, revolvin' slow 
 Vether 'twere safe to shy it or no — 
 And he grumbled on, in an injured tone, 
 " All that I axed vos, let me alone." 
 
FROM "THE MARCH OF THE REGI- 
 MENT " 
 
 O Fair and Faithful ! that, sun by sun, 
 Slept on the field, or lost or won — 
 Children dear of the Holy One ! 
 
 Rest in your wintry sod. 
 Rest, your noble Devoir is done — 
 Done — and forever ! — ours, to-day, 
 The dreary drift and the frozen clay 
 
 By trampling armies trod — 
 The smoky shroud of the War-Simoom, 
 The maddened Crime at bay with her Doom, 
 
 And fighting it, clod by clod. 
 O Calm and Glory ! — beyond the gloom, 
 Above the bayonets bend and bloom 
 
 The lilies and palms of God. 
 
 February, 1862. 
 
 62 
 
HEARTS OF OAK.— AN EPITAPH 
 
 (march 8, 1862.) 
 
 To quarters — stand by, my hearties ! 
 
 Every shot to-day must tell — 
 Here they come at last, the lubbers, 
 
 Boxed up in their iron shell. 
 
 Aye, she 's heading dead athwart us, 
 Where the fog begins to lift — 
 
 Now a broadside, and all together, 
 At the bloody rope- walk adrift ! 
 
 How the hog-back's snout comes on us ! 
 
 Give it again to 'em, boys ! 
 Ah, there 's a crash at our counter 
 
 Can be heard through all the noise ! 
 
 'Tis like pitching of peas and pebbles — 
 
 No matter for that, my men, 
 Stand by, to send 'em another — 
 
 Ah, I think we hulled her then ! 
 
 63 
 
Carpenter, how is the water ? 
 
 Gaining, sir, faster and higher ; 
 'Tis all awash in the ward-room — 
 
 Never mind — ■ we can load and fire ! 
 
 Let them charge with their Iron Devil, 
 They never shall see our backs — 
 
 What, all afloat on our gun-deck ? 
 
 Aye, your sponges and rammers to the racks ! 
 
 Sinking, my hearts, at an anchor — 
 
 But never say die till it 's o'er ! 
 Are you ready there on the spar-deck ? 
 
 We '11 give them one round more. 
 
 Ready all, on the spar-deck ! 
 
 Aye, my lads, we 're going down — 
 She 's heeling — • but one more broadside 
 
 For the Navy and its old renown ! 
 Hurrah ! there go the splinters ! 
 
 Ha, they shall know us where we drown ! 
 
 Now one cheer more, my hearties, 
 For the Flag and its brave renown ! 
 
 They shall hear it, the fine old captains, 
 With Hull and Perry looking down. 
 64 
 
They 're watching us, where we founder, 
 With a tear on each tough old cheek — 
 
 Down she goes, our noble frigate, 
 But the Old Flag 's still at her peak ! 
 
 It waves o'er the blood-red water — 
 
 Lawrence sees it where it flies ! 
 And they look down, our grand old captains, 
 
 With a tear and a smile from the skies. 
 
WORDS THAT CAN BE SUNG 
 
 TO THE "HALLELUJAH CHORUS " 
 
 Old John Brown lies a-mouldering in the grave, 
 
 Old John Brown lies slumbering in his grave — 
 
 But JohnBrown's soul is marchingwith the brave, 
 
 His soul is marching on. 
 
 Glory, glory, hallelujah ! 
 
 Glory, glory, hallelujah ! 
 
 Glory, glory, hallelujah ! 
 
 His soul is marching on. 
 
 He has gone to be a soldier in the Army of the 
 
 Lord, 
 He is sworn as a private in the ranks of the Lord — 
 He shall stand at Armageddon with his brave old 
 sword, 
 
 When Heaven is marching on. 
 Glory, etc. 
 
 For Heaven is marching on. 
 
 He shall file in front where the lines of battle form, 
 He shall face to front when the squares of battle 
 form — 
 
 66 
 
Time with the column, and charge in the storm, 
 Where men are marching on. 
 Glory, etc. 
 
 True men are marching on. 
 
 Ah, foul tyrants ! do ye hear him where he comes ? 
 Ah, black traitors ! do ye know him as he comes ? 
 In thunder of the cannon and roll of the drums, 
 
 As we go marching on. 
 Glory, etc. 
 
 We all are marching on. 
 
 Men may die, and moulder in the dust — 
 Men may die, and arise again from dust, 
 Shoulder to shoulder, in the ranks of the Just, 
 
 When Heaven is marching on. 
 Glory, etc. 
 
 The Lord is marching on. 
 
 April 17th, 1862. 
 
ONE WORD 
 
 Speak to us, to-day, O Father ! 
 
 Our hearts are strangely stirred — 
 A Nation's Life is hanging 
 
 On a yet unspoken word. 
 
 Long, by the hearthstone corner, 
 May the aged grandame sit, 
 
 And toil, with trembling fingers, 
 That another sock be knit ; 
 
 Men may march and manoeuvre, 
 And camp on fields of death — 
 
 The Iron Saurians wheel and dart, 
 And thunder their fiery breath ; 
 
 But one brave word is wanting — 
 The word whose tone should start 
 
 The pulses of men to flamelets 
 Thrilling through every heart ! 
 
 O Father, trust your children ! 
 If ever you found them fail, 
 68 
 
'Twas but for lack of the one true word 
 That must to the end prevail. 
 
 Where funeral willows quiver 
 On the banks of the Mighty River, 
 
 'Twas seen what men may do — 
 Flame ahead, and flame to larboard ! 
 
 (Aye, the Pit's mouth burned blue !) 
 Not a craven thought was harbored — 
 'Twas hell to port and starboard, 
 
 But the Hearts of Oak went through ! 
 
 They have shown what men may do, 
 They have proved how men may die — 
 
 Count, who can, the fields they 've pressed, 
 Each face to the solemn sky ! 
 
 Is it yet forgotten, of Shiloh 
 
 And the long outnumbered lines, 
 
 How the blue frocks lay in winrows ? 
 How they died at the Seven Pines ? 
 
 How they sank in the Varuna ? 
 
 (Seven Foes in Flame around !) 
 How they went down with the Cumberland, 
 
 Firing, cheering as they drowned ? 
 69 ' 
 
Spirits, a hundred of thousands, 
 
 Eager, and bold, and true, 
 Gone to make good one brave, just word- 
 
 Father, they died for you ! 
 
 Died, in tempest of battle, 
 
 Died, in the cot's dull pain — 
 
 Let their ghosts be glad in heaven, 
 That they died — and not in vain ! 
 
 And never fear but the living 
 
 Shall stand, to the last, by thee — 
 
 They shall yet make up the million, 
 And another, if need there be ! 
 
 But fail not, as thy trust is heaven, 
 To breathe the word shall wake 
 
 The holiest fire of a Nation's heart — 
 Speak it, for Christ's dear sake ! 
 
 Speak it, our earthly Father ! 
 
 In the Name of His, and smile 
 At one breath more of the Viper 
 
 Whose fangs shall crash on the file ! 
 70 
 
The Angel-Songs are forever, 
 
 The Snake can hiss but his day — 
 
 Speak, O Shepherd of Peoples ! 
 And fold earth's blessings for aye. 
 
 July 17th, 1861. 
 
SOMNIA CCELI 
 
 (JANUARY I, I 863.) 
 
 Doom of Hate and of Darkness! 
 
 Dawn of Life and of Light ! 
 Surely, 'twas God's fair Angel 
 
 Stood by my couch, last night. 
 
 Looked on the careworn Creature, 
 Pitied the yearning Dust — 
 
 I slept the sleep of the Blessed, 
 Dreamed the dreams of the Just. 
 
 O, griefs of our Infant Being, 
 O, earthly anguish and ills, 
 
 All at an end, and forever ! — 
 I stood on the Happy Hills. 
 
 The hills and the fields of Beulah 
 Fair in the Heavenly Sun ! 
 
 Calm, and peace, and forgiveness — 
 Life and Death were at one. 
 
 Vale and forest grew dimmer, 
 Cliff" gloomed purple and gray — 
 
 72 
 
And slowly a night descended 
 
 More sweet than our sunniest day. 
 
 But far in the lost horizon, 
 
 Through the Outer Darkness whirled 
 A vast and a wretched Shadow — 
 
 Methought, 'twas this our world. 
 
 Ah, the gloom and the horror ! 
 
 For the Powers of Air had met — 
 And the spears of Dawn and of Death-Eclipse 
 
 In deadly battle were set. 
 
 Smoke, and shudder, and torment ! 
 
 Crash, and rending, and wrack ! — 
 And if ever the Light seemed gaining, 
 
 The Dark still trampled it back. 
 
 Had I passed the Shining Portal, 
 
 Which the Lovelier Land doth keep ? 
 
 Ah, nay ! — for these eyes were mortal, 
 And they could not choose but weep. 
 
 But, lifting the lids of anguish, 
 I was 'ware, by the waning light, 
 
 Of a grand and a holy Presence, 
 Calm and strong, in my sight. 
 
 73 
 
Grace, and gladness, and splendor ! 
 
 Pity, 'mid power and pride ! — 
 (Yet, methought, more truly tender 
 
 A dimmer Form at his side, 
 Lovely, pallid and slender, 
 
 Sweetly and sadly eyed.) 
 
 And the glorious Lips bespake me, 
 With a smile, as half in mirth, 
 
 Questioning — what the trouble 
 Wearies thee, Child of Earth ? 
 
 What thereto could I answer ? 
 
 What but, with sigh and tear — 
 All, alas, is so wretched there ! 
 
 All is so happy here ! 
 
 But again the word was taken — 
 Therefore art thou forlorn ? 
 
 How dreamest thou what the angels, 
 In their earthly day, have borne ? 
 
 How weary their earlier way, 
 
 While yon half-made orb they trod • 
 
 The blinder reason, the dimmer ray, 
 The ruder working of God ! 
 
 74 
 
For 'tis raised, the tempest of trouble, 
 (Though seeming judgment or curse,) 
 
 Of the infinite Love and Pity — 
 And ever to thwart a worse. 
 
 The whirl, the crash, and the ruin, 
 (Much though it seem to thee,) 
 
 Is naught but a broken toy of earth 
 To the horror that else should be ! 
 
 Were it better, the Lord's fair Garden 
 Of its fruitage forever fail — 
 
 That a growth of drowsy venom 
 Still fester for slug and snail — 
 
 Or that Crime, the monstrous Mandrake, 
 Be rooted with shriek and wail ? 
 
 That Hell, unchallenged forever, 
 
 Craze yon Sphere-Soul past doubt — 
 
 Or Earth, possessed of her Demon, 
 Be rent in the casting out ? 
 
 Hereon 'twere idle to linger. 
 
 True, that offence must come — 
 Woe, ah woe to the bringer ! 
 
 (But the gentler Shade was dumb.) 
 
 75 
 
He spake — but shadow and thunder 
 Swept o'er the unhappy sphere — 
 
 And a low, dull throb thereunder 
 Trembled on heart and ear — 
 
 A hollow, heavy pulsation, 
 
 As from filling of trench and grave — 
 And a deeper ululation 
 
 Up through the dark did wave — 
 The moan of a Mother-Nation 
 
 For her darling and her brave. 
 
 Ever from earth ascended 
 
 The thrill and shudder of pain — 
 When shall thy grief be ended, 
 
 O Earth ? — and I wept again. 
 
 Is it ever of woe and anguish, 
 That the better world is born? 
 
 Ever a night of dreadful dream 
 Must cradle the Holy Morn ? 
 
 Thus I mourned and lamented, 
 With the wearied heart of a child, 
 
 'Feared, lest never the day should dawn - 
 But again the Presence smiled, 
 76 
 
And again, as in cheer, he spake — 
 
 Aye, ever yon Cradle-Sphere 
 Is rudely rocked ere the Earth-Soul wake — 
 
 But another rule is here, 
 And a Morn of joy no shadow may break 
 
 But 'tokens a happier Year. 
 
 And therewith pleaded the Other — 
 
 Is it so unhappy then, 
 To die for God and for Mother, 
 
 Rendering the soul like men ? 
 
 Is it grievous, weapon in hand 
 For Faith and the Holy Name, 
 
 To pass, in strength, to the wondrous Land, 
 By the Portal of Steel and Flame ? 
 
 Thunder, to-day, at the Outer Gate ! 
 
 Earth's eager squadrons form — 
 The daring spirits that could not wait 
 
 Are taking Heaven by storm ! 
 
 The splendor of battle in their eyes, 
 
 They enter, even now — 
 How it lights the Port of Paradise, 
 
 The death-gleam on each brow ! 
 
 77 
 
The fire on the wan cheek flickered, 
 The form was in act to fleet — 
 
 Yet again the Voice made murmur, 
 (It was strangely low and sweet,) 
 
 Not thine, as yet, even here, to mark 
 How Life and Death may meet. 
 
 Nor mine, to-night, to whisper 
 
 The word could set thee free — 
 They faded, the mighty Brothers, 
 
 As Twin-Clouds fade o'er the sea — 
 Yet murmured still, in their going, 
 
 Peace, O mortal, with thee ! 
 Sleep, and dream the salvation 
 
 Thine eyes, the morn, shall see. 
 
 And therewith peace waved o'er me — 
 The mighty morning broke, 
 
 From fevered slumber and guilty dream 
 The Land, in wonder, woke — 
 
 It rocked and rang to the noblest Word 
 Ever a mortal spoke ! 
 
 Though these our changes and choices 
 But falter the Will Divine, — 
 
 Of all the infinite voices 
 
 That throng to the Central Shrine, 
 
 78 
 
None, O father, rejoices 
 
 Heaven, to the heart, like thine ! 
 
 A touch from the Unseen Finger, 
 Lo, they kindle, the lips of clay — 
 
 Ah, for a worthier singer ! — 
 Joy thee, O earth ! — to-day, 
 
 (Though awhile it seemed to linger,) 
 The Shadow passes — for aye ! 
 
 Thy murky shroud to the Gone shall sweep 
 On the wings of the Thunder-Gale — 
 
 The Share of the Lord is driving deep, 
 But blossom nor fruit shall fail. 
 
 And now, come wrath and reviling ! 
 
 Let the Crime rave as it can, 
 With the yelp of pettier treason, 
 
 The caitiff cursing and ban — 
 We know that a God is in Heaven, 
 
 We know that Earth has a Man ! 
 
 Let them gloat, the ravined Nations, 
 Scenting our blood through the dark, 
 
 (As his fellows glare mid the salt-sea, 
 Ere they tear at a wounded shark.) 
 
 79 
 
Let it gnash, the rage and the menace, 
 And the gnarring, o'er and o'er, 
 
 Like a mangled Wolf 's, from out yon gloom - 
 Telling, as time afore, 
 
 Murder doth not go to the doom 
 Without a Death-Shrill the more ! 
 
 Come, battle of stormiest breath, 
 O'er meadow and hill-side brown 
 
 The long lines sweeping up to death, 
 'Mid thunder from trench and town — 
 
 The victor cheer, or the martyr faith 
 For Right and for God's Renown ! 
 
 And come, the shock and the shudder ! 
 
 The dull and heavy heart-pain, 
 The watch, the woe, and the waiting — 
 
 Once more, like the summer's rain, 
 Pour thy dear blood, beloved Land ! — 
 
 Never a drop is in vain ! 
 
 And never in vain, our brothers ! 
 
 That dark December's day, 
 For the Truth, and for hope to others, 
 
 By slope and by trench ye lay — 
 80 
 
Lay, through the long night's damp, 
 
 On a lost and fatal field ; 
 But a stronger Line, and a vaster Camp 
 
 To your noble charge did yield. 
 
 Did we deem 'twas woe and pity 
 That there, in your flower, ye died ? 
 
 Ah, fond ! — the Celestial City 
 Her Portal fair flung wide. 
 
 The mighty Avenue surges — 
 
 For, to-day, doth enter in 
 An Army of victor souls and strong, 
 
 Sublimed, through fire, from sin. 
 
 And their ranks form deep for escort, 
 
 The holy and valiant Throng 
 Erst risen, through storm and battle, 
 Guarding the Good 'gainst Wrong. 
 
 The Colors ye bore in vain that day 
 Yet wave o'er Heaven's Recruits — 
 
 And are trooped by Aidenn's starriest Gate, 
 While the Flaming Sword salutes ! 
 
 January, 1863. 
 
BURY THEM 
 
 (WAGNER, JULY i 8, 1863.) 
 
 Bury the dragon's Teeth ! 
 Bury them deep and dark ! 
 The incisors swart and stark, 
 The molars heavy and dark — 
 
 And the one white Fang underneath ! 
 
 Bury the Hope Forlorn ! 
 
 Never shudder to fling, 
 With its fellows dusky and worn, 
 
 The strong and beautiful thing, 
 (Pallid ivory and pearl !) 
 
 Into the horrible Pit — 
 Hurry it in, and hurl 
 
 All the rest over it ! 
 
 Trample them, clod by clod, 
 
 Stamp them in dust amain ! 
 The cuspids, cruent and red, 
 That the Monster, Freedom, shed 
 82 
 
On the sacred, strong Slave-Sod — 
 They never shall rise again ! 
 
 Never ? — what hideous growth 
 
 Is sprouting through clod and clay ? 
 
 What Terror starts to the day ? 
 A crop of steel, on our oath ! 
 
 How the burnished stamens glance ! - 
 Spike, and anther, and blade, 
 How they burst from the bloody shade, 
 
 And spindle to spear and lance ! 
 
 There are tassels of blood-red maize — 
 How the horrible Harvest grows ! 
 
 'Tis sabres that glint and daze — 
 
 'Tis bayonets all ablaze 
 
 Uprearing in dreadful rows ! 
 
 For one that we buried there, 
 A thousand are come to air ! 
 Ever, by door-stone and hearth, 
 They break from the angry earth — 
 
 And out of the crimson sand, 
 Where the cold white Fang was laid, 
 Rises a terrible Shade, 
 
 The Wraith of a sleepless Brand ! 
 
 83 
 
And our hearts wax strange and chill, 
 With an ominous shudder and thrill, 
 
 Even here, on the strong Slave-Sod, 
 Lest, haply, we be found, 
 (Ah, dread no brave hath drowned !) 
 
 Fighting against Great God. 
 
THE BATTLE SUMMERS 
 
 Again the glory of the days ! 
 
 Once more the dreamy sunshine fills 
 Noon after noon, — and all the hills 
 
 Lie soft and dim in autumn haze. 
 
 And lovely lie these meadows low 
 In the slant sun — and quiet broods 
 Above the splendor of the woods 
 
 All touched with autumn's tenderest glow. 
 
 The trees stand marshalled, clan by clan, 
 A bannered army, far and near — 
 (Mark how yon fiery maples rear 
 
 Their crimson colors in the van !) 
 
 Methinks, these ancient haunts among, 
 A fuller life informs the fall — 
 The crows in council sit and call, 
 
 The quail through stubble leads her young. 
 
 The woodcock whirrs by bush and brake, 
 The partridge plies his cedar-search — 
 
 85 
 
(Old Andy says the trout and perch 
 Are larger now, in stream and lake.) 
 
 O'er the brown leaves, the forest floor, 
 With nut and acorn scantly strewed, 
 The small red people of the wood 
 
 Are out to seek their winter store. 
 
 To-day they gather, each and all, 
 To take their last of autumn suns — 
 E'en the gray squirrel lithely runs 
 
 Along the mossy pasture wall. 
 
 By marsh and brook, by copse and hill, 
 To their old quiet haunts repair 
 The feeble things of earth and air, 
 
 And feed and flutter at their will. 
 
 The feet that roved this woodland round, 
 The hands that scared the timid race, 
 Now mingle in a mightier chase, 
 
 Or mould on that great Hunting-Ground. 
 
 Strange calm and peace ! — ah, who could deem, 
 By this still glen, this lone hill-side, 
 How three long summers, in their pride, 
 
 Have smiled above that awful Dream ? — 
 86 
 
Have ever woven a braver green, 
 And ever arched a lovelier blue ; 
 Yet Nature, in her every hue, 
 
 Took color from the dread Unseen. 
 
 The haze of Indian Summer seemed 
 
 Borne from far fields of sulphury breath — 
 A subtile atmosphere of death 
 
 Was ever round us as we dreamed. 
 
 The horizon's dim heat-lightning played 
 
 Like small-arms, still, thro' nights of drouth, 
 And the low thunder of the south 
 
 Was dull and distant cannonade. 
 
 To us the glory or the gray 
 
 Had still a stranger, stormier dye, 
 Remembering how we watched the sky 
 
 Of many a waning battle day, 
 
 O'er many a field of loss or fame : 
 How Shiloh's eve to ashes turned, 
 And how Manassas' sunset burned 
 
 Incarnadine of blood and flame. 
 
 And how, in thunder, day by day, 
 The hot sky hanging over all, 
 
 87 
 
Beneath that sullen, lurid pall, 
 The Week of Battles rolled away ! 
 
 " Give me my legions ! " — so, in grief, 
 Like him of Rome, our Father cried : 
 (A Nation's Flower lay down and died 
 In yon fell shade !) — ah, hapless chief — 
 
 Too late we learned thy star ! — o'erta'en, 
 (Of error or of fate o'erharsh,) 
 Like Varus, in the fatal marsh 
 
 Where skill and valor all were vain ! 
 
 All vain — Fair Oaks and Seven Pines ! 
 A deeper hue than dying Fall 
 May lend, is yours ! — jet over all 
 
 The mild Virginian autumn shines. 
 
 And still a Nation's Heart o'erhung 
 The iron echoes pealed afar, 
 Along a thousand leagues of war 
 
 The battle thunders tossed and flung. 
 
 Till, when our fortunes paled the most, 
 And Hope had half forgot to wave 
 Her banner o'er the wearied brave — 
 
 A morning saw the traitor host 
 88 
 
Rolled back o'er red Potomac's wave. 
 And the Great River burst his way ! — 
 And all on that dear Summer's Day, 
 
 Day that our fathers died and gave. 
 
 Rest in thy calm, Eternal Right ! 
 
 For thee, though levin-scarred and torn, 
 Through flame and death shall still be borne 
 
 The Red, the Azure, and the White. 
 
 We pass — we sink like summer's snow — 
 Yet on the mighty Cause shall move, 
 Though every field a Carina prove, 
 
 And every pass a Roncesvaux. 
 
 Though every summer burn anew 
 
 A battle summer, — though each day 
 We name a new Aceldema, 
 
 Or some dry Golgotha re-dew. 
 
 And thou, in lonely dream withdrawn ! 
 What dost thou, while in tempest dies 
 The long drear Night, and all the skies 
 
 Are red with Freedom's fiery Dawn ! 
 
 Behold, thy summer days are o'er — 
 Yet dearer, lovelier these that fall 
 89 
 
Wrapped in red autumn's flag, than all 
 The green and glory gone before. 
 
 'Twas well to sing by stream and sod, 
 And they there were that loved thy lays - 
 But lo, where, 'neath yon battle-haze, 
 
 Thy brothers bare the breast for God ! 
 
 Reck not of waning force nor breath — 
 Some little aid may jet be thine, 
 Some honor to the All-Divine, — 
 
 To-day, where, by yon River of Death, 
 
 His stars on Rosecrans look down — 
 Or, on the morrow, by moat and wall, 
 Once more when the Great Admiral 
 
 Thunders on traitor fleet and town. 
 
 O wearied heart ! O darkening eye ! 
 (How long to hope and trust untrue !) 
 What in the hurly can ye do ? 
 
 Little, 'tis like — yet we can die. 
 
 October, 1863. 
 
SUSPIRIA ENSIS 
 
 Mourn no more for our dead, 
 Laid in their rest serene — 
 
 With the tears a Land hath shed 
 Their graves shall ever be green. 
 
 Ever their fair, true glory 
 
 Fondly shall fame rehearse — 
 
 Light of legend and story, 
 Flower of marble and verse ! 
 
 (Wilt thou forget, O Mother ! 
 
 How thy darlings, day by day, 
 For thee, and with fearless faces, 
 
 Journeyed the darksome way — 
 Went down to death in the war-ship, 
 
 And on the bare hill-side lay ?) 
 
 For the Giver they gave their breath, 
 And 'tis now no time to mourn — 
 
 Lo, of their dear, brave death 
 A mighty Nation is born ! 
 
 But a long lament for others, 
 Dying for Darker Powers ! — 
 
 9 1 
 
Those that once were our brothers, 
 Whose children shall yet be ours. 
 
 That a People, haughty and brave, 
 
 (Warriors, old and young !) 
 Should lie in a bloody grave, 
 
 And never a dirge be sung ! 
 
 We may look with woe on the dead, 
 We may smooth their lids, 'tis true, 
 
 For the veins of a common red 
 And the Mothers milk we drew. 
 
 But alas, how vainly bleeds 
 
 The breast that is bared for Crime — 
 Who shall dare hymn the deeds 
 
 That else had been all sublime ? 
 
 Were it alien steel that clashed 
 
 They had guarded each inch of sod — 
 But the angry valor dashed 
 
 On the awful shield of God ! 
 
 (Ah — if for some great Good — 
 On some giant Evil hurled — 
 
 The Thirty Millions had stood 
 
 'Gainst the might of a banded world !) 
 92 
 
But now, to the long, long Night 
 They pass, as they ne'er had been — 
 
 A stranger and sadder sight 
 Than ever the sun hath seen. 
 
 For his waning beams illume 
 
 A vast and a sullen train 
 Going down to the gloom — 
 
 One wretched and drear refrain 
 The only line on their tomb, — 
 
 " They died — and they died in vain ! " 
 
 Gone — ay me ! — to the grave, 
 And never one note of song — 
 
 The Muse would weep for the brave, 
 But how shall she chant the wrong ? 
 
 For a wayward Wench is she — 
 
 One that rather would wait 
 With Old John Brown at the tree 
 
 Than Stonewall dying in state. 
 
 When, for the wrongs that were, 
 Hath she lilted a single stave ? 
 
 Know, proud hearts, that, with her, 
 'Tis not enough to be brave. 
 
 93 
 
By the injured, with loving glance, 
 Aye hath she lingered of old, 
 
 And eyed the Evil askance, 
 
 Be it never so haught and bold. 
 
 With Homer, alms-gift in hand, 
 
 With Dante, exile and free, 
 With Milton, blind in the Strand, 
 
 With Hugo, lone by the sea ! 
 
 In the attic, with Beranger, 
 
 She could carol, how blithe and free ! 
 Of the old, worn Frocks of Blue, 
 
 (All threadbare with victory ! ) 
 But never of purple and gold, 
 
 Never of Lily or Bee ! 
 
 And thus, though the Traitor Sword 
 Were the bravest that battle wields — 
 
 Though the fiery Valor poured 
 Its life on a thousand fields — 
 
 The sheen of its ill renown 
 
 All tarnished with guilt and blame, 
 No Poet a deed may crown, 
 
 No Lay may laurel a name. 
 
 94 
 
Yet never for thee, fair Song ! 
 
 The fallen brave to condemn ; 
 They died for a mighty Wrong — 
 
 But their Demon died with them. 
 
 (Died, by field and by city !) — 
 Be thine on the day to dwell, 
 
 When dews of peace and of pity 
 Shall fall o'er the fading hell — 
 
 And the dead shall smile in Heaven - 
 And tears, that now may not rise, 
 
 Of love and of all forgiveness, 
 Shall stream from a million eyes. 
 
 Flag Ship Hartford, at Sea, 
 January, 1864. 
 
THE RIVER FIGHT 
 
 (MISSISSIPPI RIVER, APRIL 24, 1862.) 
 
 Do you know of the dreary Land, 
 
 If land such region may seem, 
 Where 'tis neither sea nor strand, 
 Ocean nor good dry land, 
 
 But the nightmare marsh of a dream — 
 Where the Mighty River his death-road takes, 
 'Mid pools, and windings that coil like snakes, 
 (A hundred leagues of bayous and lakes,) 
 
 To die in the great Gulf Stream ? 
 
 No coast-line clear and true, 
 (Granite and deep sea blue,) 
 
 On that dismal shore you pass — 
 Surf- worn boulder nor sandy beach, 
 But ooze-flats far as the eye can reach, 
 
 With shallows of water-grass — 
 Reedy savannas, vast and dun, 
 Lying dead in the dim March sun — 
 Huge rotting trunks and roots that lie 
 Like blackened bones of the Shapes gone by, 
 
 And miles of sunken morass. 
 
 9° 
 
No lovely, delicate thing 
 
 Of life o'er the waste is seen — 
 But the cayman couched by his weedy spring, 
 
 And the pelican, bird unclean — 
 Or the buzzard, flapping on heavy wing 
 
 Like an evil ghost, o'er the desolate scene. 
 
 Ah, many a weary day 
 
 With our Leader there we lay, 
 
 In the sultry haze and smoke, 
 Tugging our ships o'er the bar — 
 Till the Spring was wasted far, 
 
 Till his brave heart almost broke — 
 For the sullen River seemed 
 As if our intent he dreamed — 
 
 All his shallow mouths did spew and choke. 
 
 But, ere April fully past, 
 
 All ground over at last, 
 
 And we knew the die was cast — 
 
 Knew the day drew nigh 
 To dare to the end one stormy deed, 
 Might save the Land at her sorest need, 
 
 Or on the old deck to die ! 
 
 Anchored we lay — and, a morn the more, 
 To his captains and all his men 
 
 97 
 
Thus wrote our stout old Commodore 
 (He was n't Admiral then :) 
 
 GENERAL ORDERS 
 
 ' Send your to'gallant masts down, 
 Rig in each flying jib-boom ! 
 Clear all ahead for the loom 
 Of traitor fortress and town, 
 Or traitor fleet bearing down. 
 
 In with your canvas high — 
 
 We shall want no sail to fly ! 
 Topsail and foresail, spanker and jib, 
 (With the heart of oak in the oaken rib,) 
 
 Shall serve us to win or die ! 
 
 Trim every hull by the head, 
 (So shall you spare the lead,) 
 Lest, if she ground, your ship swing round, 
 
 Bows in-shore, for a wreck — 
 See your grapnels all clear, with pains, 
 And a solid kedge in your port main-chains, 
 With a whip to the main-yard — 
 Drop it, heavy and hard, 
 
 When you grapple a traitor deck ! 
 98 
 
On forecastle and on poop 
 
 Mount guns, as best you may deem — 
 If possible, rouse them up, 
 
 (For still you must bow the stream) — 
 Also hoist and secure with stops 
 Howitzers firmly in your tops, 
 
 To fire on the foe abeam. 
 
 Look well to your pumps and hose — 
 Have water-tubs, fore and aft, 
 For quenching flame in your craft, 
 And the gun-crews' fiery thirst — 
 
 See planks with felt fitted close, 
 To plug every shot-hole tight — 
 Stand ready to meet the worst ! 
 For, if I have reckoned aright, 
 
 They will serve us shot, both cold and hot, 
 Freely enough, to-night. 
 
 Mark we'll each signal I make — 
 (Our life-long service at stake, 
 
 And honor that must not lag !) 
 Whate'er the peril and awe, 
 In the battle's fieriest flaw, 
 Let never one ship withdraw 
 
 Till orders come from the Flag ! " 
 
 99 
 
Would you hear of the River-Fight ? 
 It was two, of a soft spring night — 
 
 God's stars looked down on all, 
 And all was clear and bright 
 But the low fog's chilling breath — 
 Up the River of Death 
 
 Sailed the Great Admiral. 
 
 On our high poop-deck he stood, 
 
 And round him ranged the men 
 Who have made their birthright good 
 
 Of manhood, once and agen — 
 Lords of helm and of sail, 
 Tried in tempest and gale, 
 
 Bronzed in battle and wreck — 
 Bell and Bailey grandly led 
 Each his Line of the Blue and Red — 
 Wainwright stood by our starboard rail, 
 
 Thornton fought the deck. 
 
 And I mind me of more than they, 
 Of the youthful, steadfast ones, 
 That have shown them worthy sons 
 Of the Seamen passed away — 
 (Tyson conned our helm, that day, 
 Watson stood by his guns.) 
 ioo 
 
What thought our Admiral, then, 
 Looking down on his men ? 
 
 Since the terrible day, 
 
 (Day of renown and tears !) 
 
 When at anchor the Essex lay, 
 
 Holding her foes at bay, 
 When, a boy, by Porter's side he stood 
 Till deck and plank-shear were dyed with blood, 
 'Tis half a hundred years — 
 
 Half a hundred years, to-day ! 
 
 Who could fail, with him ? 
 Who reckon of life or limb ? 
 
 Not a pulse but beat the higher ! 
 There had you seen, by the star-light dim, 
 Five hundred faces strong and grim ■ — 
 
 The Flag is going under fire ! 
 Right up by the fort, with her helm hard-a-port, 
 
 The Hartford is going under fire ! 
 
 The way to our work was plain, 
 Caldwell had broken the chain, 
 (Two hulks swung down amain, 
 
 Soon as 'twas sundered) — 
 Under the night's dark blue, 
 Steering steady and true, 
 Ship after ship went through — 
 
 IOI 
 
Till, as we hove in view, 
 Jackson out- thundered. 
 
 Back echoed Philip ! — ah, then, 
 Could you have seen our men, 
 
 How they sprung, in the dim night haze, 
 To their work of toil and of clamor ! 
 How the loaders, with sponge and rammer, 
 And their captains, with cord and hammer, 
 
 Kept every muzzle ablaze ! 
 How the guns, as with cheer and shout 
 Our tackle-men hurled them out, 
 
 Brought up on the water-ways ! 
 
 First, as we fired at their flash, 
 
 'Twas lightning and black eclipse, 
 With a bellowing roll and crash — 
 But soon, upon either bow, 
 
 What with forts, and fire-rafts, and ships - 
 (The whole fleet was hard at it, now, 
 All pounding away ! ) — and Porter 
 Still thundering with shell and mortar — 
 
 'Twas the mighty sound and form 
 
 Of an Equatorial storm! 
 
 (Such as you see in the Far South, 
 After long heat and drouth, 
 
 102 
 
As day draws nigh to even — 
 Arching from North to South, 
 Blinding the tropic sun, 
 The great black bow comes on — 
 
 Till the thunder-veil is riven, 
 
 When all is crash and levin, 
 
 And the cannonade of heaven 
 Rolls down the Amazon !) 
 
 But, as we worked along higher, 
 
 Just where the river enlarges, 
 Down came a pyramid of fire — 
 
 It was one of your long coal barges. 
 
 (We had often had the like before) — 
 'Twas coming down on us to larboard, 
 
 Well in with the eastern shore — 
 
 And our pilot, to let it pass round, 
 
 (You may guess we never stopped to sound,) 
 Giving us a rank sheer to starboard, 
 
 Ran the Flag hard and fast aground ! 
 
 'Twas nigh abreast of the Upper Fort, 
 And straightway a rascal Ram 
 (She was shaped like the devil's dam) 
 
 Puffed away for us, with a snort, 
 
 And shoved it, with spiteful strength, 
 
 Right alongside of us, to port — 
 103 
 
It was all of our ship's length, 
 A huge crackling Cradle of the Pit, 
 
 Pitch-pine knots to the brim, 
 
 Belching flame red and grim — 
 What a roar came up from it ! 
 
 Well, for a little it looked bad — 
 
 But these things are, somehow, shorter 
 In the acting than the telling — 
 There was no singing-out nor yelling, 
 Nor any fussing and fretting, 
 
 No stampede, in short — 
 But there we were, my lad, 
 
 All a-fire on our port quarter ! 
 Hammocks a-blaze in the netting, 
 
 Flame spouting in at every port — 
 Our Fourth Cutter burning at the davit, 
 (No chance to lower away and save it.) 
 
 In a twinkling, the flames had risen 
 Half way to main top and mizzen, 
 Darting up the shrouds like snakes ! 
 Ah, how we clanked at the brakes, 
 
 And the deep steam-pumps throbbed under, 
 Sending a ceaseless flow — 
 Our top-men, a dauntless crowd, 
 Swarmed in rigging and shroud — 
 104 
 
There, ('twas a wonder !) 
 The burning ratlins and strands 
 They quenched with their bare hard hands — 
 But the great guns below 
 
 Never silenced their thunder ! 
 
 At last, by backing and sounding, 
 
 When we were clear of grounding, 
 And under head-way once more, 
 
 The whole rebel fleet came rounding 
 The point — if we had it hot before, 
 'Twas now, from shore to shore, 
 One long, loud thundering roar — 
 
 Such crashing, splintering, and pounding, 
 And smashing as you never heard before ! 
 
 But that we fought foul wrong to wreck, 
 And to save the Land we loved so well, 
 
 You might have deemed our long gun-deck 
 Two hundred feet of hell ! 
 
 For all above was battle, 
 Broadside, and blaze, and rattle, 
 
 Smoke and thunder alone — 
 (But, down in the sick-bay, 
 Where our wounded and dying lay, 
 
 There was scarce a sob or a moan.) 
 105 
 
And at last, when the dim day broke, 
 And the sullen sun awoke, 
 
 Drearily blinking 
 O'er the haze and the cannon -smoke, 
 That ever such morning dulls — 
 There were thirteen traitor hulls 
 
 On fire and sinking ! 
 
 Now, up the river ! — though mad Chalmette 
 
 Sputters a vain resistance yet. 
 
 Small helm we gave her, our course to steer — 
 
 'Twas nicer work than you well would dream, 
 With cant and sheer to keep her clear 
 
 Of the burning wrecks that cumbered the 
 stream. 
 
 The Louisiana, hurled on high, 
 Mounts in thunder to meet the sky ! 
 Then down to the depth of the turbid flood, 
 Fifty fathom of rebel mud ! 
 The Mississippi comes floating down, 
 A mighty bonfire, from off" the town — 
 And along the river, on stocks and ways, 
 A half-hatched devil's brood is a-blaze — 
 The great Anglo-Norman is all in flames, 
 (Hark to the roar of her tumbling frames !) 
 106 
 
And the smaller fry that Treason would spawn, 
 Are lighting Algiers like an angry dawn ! 
 
 From stem to stern, how the pirates burn, 
 
 Fired by the furious hands that built ! 
 So to ashes forever turn 
 
 The suicide wrecks of wrong and guilt ! 
 But, as we neared the city, 
 
 By field and vast plantation, 
 
 (Ah, mill-stone of our Nation !) 
 With wonder and with pity 
 
 What crowds we there espied 
 Of dark and wistful faces, 
 Mute in their toiling-places, 
 
 Strangely and sadly eyed — 
 
 Haply, 'mid doubt and fear, 
 
 Deeming deliverance near — 
 
 (One gave the ghost of a cheer !) 
 
 And on that dolorous strand, 
 
 To greet the victor-brave 
 
 One flag did welcome wave — 
 Raised, ah me ! by a wretched hand, 
 All outworn on our cruel Land — 
 
 The withered hand of a slave ! 
 
 But all along the Levee 
 
 In a dark and drenching rain, 
 
 107 
 
(By this, 'twas pouring heavy,) 
 
 Stood a fierce and sullen train — 
 A strange and a frenzied time ! 
 
 There were scowling rage and pain, 
 Curses, howls, and hisses, 
 Out of hate's black abysses — 
 Their courage and their crime 
 All in vain — • all in vain ! 
 
 For from the hour that the Rebel Stream, 
 With the Crescent City lying abeam, 
 
 Shuddered under our keel, 
 Smit to the heart with self-struck sting, 
 Slavery died in her scorpion-ring, 
 
 And Murder fell on his steel. 
 
 'Tis well to do and dare — 
 But ever may grateful prayer 
 Follow, as aye it ought, 
 When the good fight is fought, 
 
 When the true deed is done — 
 Aloft in heaven's pure light, 
 (Deep azure crossed on white) 
 Our fair Church-Pennant waves 
 O'er a thousand thankful braves, 
 Bareheaded in God's bright sun. 
 1 08 
 
Lord of mercy and frown, 
 
 Ruling o'er sea and shore, 
 
 Send us such scene once more ! 
 
 All in Line of Battle 
 
 When the black ships bear down 
 
 On tyrant fort and town, 
 
 Mid cannon cloud and rattle — 
 
 And the great guns once more 
 
 Thunder back the roar 
 
 Of the traitor walls ashore, 
 
 And the traitor flags come down ! 
 
 Flag Ship Hartford, March, 1864. 
 
A WAR STUDY 
 
 Methinks, all idly and too well 
 We love this Nature — little care 
 (Whate'er her children brave and bear,) 
 
 Were hers, though any grief befell. 
 
 With gayer sunshine still she seeks 
 
 To gild our trouble, so 'twould seem ; 
 Through all this long, tremendous Dream, 
 
 A tear hath never wet her cheeks. 
 
 And such a scene I call to mind — 
 
 The third day's thunder, (fort and fleet, 
 And the great guns beneath our feet,) 
 
 Was dying, and a warm gulf wind 
 
 Made monotone 'mid stays and shrouds : 
 O'er books and men in quiet chat 
 With the Great Admiral I sat, 
 
 Watching the lovely cannon-clouds. 
 
 For still, from mortar and from gun, 
 Or short-fused shell that burst aloft, 
 no 
 
Outsprung a rose-wreath, bright and soft, 
 Tinged with the redly setting sun. 
 
 And I their beauty praised : but he, 
 
 The grand old Senior, strong and mild, 
 (Of head a sage, in heart a child,) 
 
 Sighed for the wreck that still must be. 
 
 Flag Ship Hartford, March, 1864. 
 
NIGHT-QUARTERS 
 
 Tang ! tang ! went the gong's wild roar 
 
 Through the hundred cells of our great Sea- 
 Hive ! 
 Five seconds — it could n't be more — 
 
 And the whole Swarm was humming and 
 alive — 
 (We were on an enemy's shore). 
 
 With savage haste, in the dark, 
 (Our steerage had n't a spark,) 
 Into boot and hose they blundered — 
 From for'ard came a strange, low roar, 
 The dull and smothered racket 
 Of lower rig and jacket 
 Hurried on, by the hundred — 
 How the berth deck buzzed and swore ! 
 
 The third of minutes ten, 
 
 And half a thousand men, 
 
 From the dream-gulf, dead and deep, 
 
 Of the seaman's measured sleep, 
 
 112 
 
In the taking of a lunar, 
 
 In the serving of a ration, 
 Ever)- man at his station ! — 
 
 Three and a quarter, or sooner .' 
 Never a skulk to be seen — 
 
 From the look-out aloft to the gunner 
 Lurking in his black magazine. 
 
 There they stand, still as death, 
 And, (a trifle out of breath, 
 
 It may be,) we of the Staff", 
 All on the poop, to a minute, 
 Wonder if there's anything in it — 
 
 Doubting if to growl or laugh. 
 
 But, somehow, every hand 
 
 Feels for hilt and brand, 
 Tries if buckle and frog be tight — 
 
 So, in the chilly breeze, we stand 
 Peering through the dimness of the night - 
 
 The men, by twos and ones, 
 
 Grim and silent at the guns, 
 Ready, if a Foe heave in sight ! 
 
 But, as we looked aloft, 
 There, all white and soft, 
 
 Floated on the fleecy clouds, 
 
 "3 
 
(Stray flocks in heaven's blue croft) — 
 How they shone, the eternal stars, 
 'Mid the black masts and spars 
 
 And the great maze of lifts and shrouds ! 
 
 Flag Ship Hartford, May, 1864. 
 
DOWN! 
 
 (APRIL, 1865.) 
 
 Yard-arm to yard-arm we lie 
 Alongside the Ship of Hell — 
 
 And still through the sulphury sky 
 
 The terrible clang goes high, 
 
 Broadside and battle cry, 
 
 And the pirates 1 maddened yell ! 
 
 Our Captain 's cold on the deck, 
 Our brave Lieutenant 's a wreck — 
 
 He lies in the hold there, hearing 
 The storm of fight going on overhead, 
 Tramp and thunder to wake the dead ! 
 The great guns jumping overhead, 
 
 And the whole ship's company cheering ! 
 
 Four hours the Death-Fight has roared, 
 
 (Gun-deck and berth-deck blood-wet !) 
 Her mainmast 's gone by the board, 
 Down come topsail and j ib ! 
 We 're smashing her, rib by rib, 
 
 115 
 
And the pirate yells grow weak — 
 
 But the Black Flag flies there yet, 
 The Death's Head grinning a-peak ! 
 
 Long has she haunted the seas, 
 
 Terror of sun and breeze ! 
 
 Her deck has echoed with groans, 
 
 Her hold is a horrid den 
 Piled to the orlop with bones 
 
 Of starved and of murdered men — 
 They swarm 'mid her shrouds in hosts, 
 The smoke is murky with ghosts ! 
 
 But to-day, her cruise shall be short — 
 She 's bound to the Port she cleared from, 
 She 's nearing the Light she steered from — 
 
 Ah, the Horror sees her fate ! 
 Heeling heavy to port, 
 
 She strikes, but all too late ! 
 Down, with her cursed crew, 
 
 Down, with her damned freight, 
 To the bottom of the Blue, 
 Ten thousand fathom deep ! 
 
 With God's glad sun o'erhead — 
 That is the way to weep, 
 
 So will we mourn our dead ! 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 (summer, 1865-) 
 
 Dead is the roll of the drums, 
 And the distant thunders die, 
 They fade in the far-off sky ; 
 
 And a lovely summer comes, 
 Like the smile of Him on high. 
 
 Lulled, the storm and the onset. 
 
 Earth lies in a sunny swoon ; 
 
 Stiller splendor of noon, 
 Softer glory of sunset, 
 
 Milder starlight and moon ! 
 
 For the kindly Seasons love us ; 
 
 They smile over trench and clod, 
 (Where we left the bravest of us,) — 
 
 There 's a brighter green of the sod, 
 And a holier calm above us 
 
 In the blessed Blue of God. 
 
 The roar and ravage were vain ; 
 And Nature, that never yields, 
 117 
 
Is busy with sun and rain 
 At her old sweet work again 
 On the lonely battle-fields. 
 
 How the tall white daisies grow, 
 Where the grim artillery rolled ! 
 
 (Was it only a moon ago ? 
 It seems a century old,) — 
 
 And the bee hums in the clover, 
 As the pleasant June comes on ; 
 
 Aye, the wars are all over, — 
 But our good Father is gone. 
 
 There was tumbling of traitor fort, 
 Flaming of traitor fleet — 
 
 Lighting of city and port, 
 
 Clasping in square and street. 
 
 There was thunder of mine and gun, 
 
 Cheering by mast and tent, — 
 When — his dread work all done, 
 And his high fame full won — 
 Died the Good President. 
 
 In his quiet chair he sate, 
 Pure of malice or guile, 
 118 
 
Stainless of fear or hate, — 
 
 And there played a pleasant smile 
 
 On the rough and careworn face ; 
 For his heart was all the while 
 
 On means of mercy and grace. 
 
 The brave old Flag drooped o'er him, 
 (A fold in the hard hand lay,) — 
 He looked, perchance, on the play, — 
 
 But the scene was a shadow before him, 
 For his thoughts were far away. 
 
 'Twas but the morn, (yon fearful 
 Death-shade, gloomy and vast, 
 Lifting slowly at last,) 
 His household heard him say, 
 
 " 'Tis long since I 've been so cheerful, 
 So light of heart as to-day." 
 
 'Twas dying, the long dread clang, — 
 But, or ever the blessed ray 
 Of peace could brighten to day, 
 Murder stood by the way — 
 
 Treason struck home his fang ! 
 
 One throb — and, without a pang, 
 That pure soul passed away. 
 119 
 
Idle, in this our blindness, 
 To marvel we cannot see 
 Wherefore such things should be; 
 
 Or to question Infinite Kindness 
 Of this or that Decree. 
 
 Or to fear lest Nature bungle, 
 
 That in certain ways she errs, — 
 The cobra in the jungle, 
 
 The crotalus in the sod, 
 Evil and good are hers, — 
 Murderers and torturers ! 
 Ye, too, were made by God. 
 
 All slowly heaven is nighing, 
 
 Needs that offence must come ; 
 Ever the Old Wrong dying 
 Will sting, in the death-coil lying, 
 And hiss till its fork be dumb. 
 
 But dare deny no further, 
 
 Black-hearted, brazen-cheeked ! 
 
 Ye on whose lips yon murther 
 These fifty moons hath reeked, — 
 
 From the wretched scenic dunce, 
 Long a-hungered to rouse 
 
 120 
 
A Nation's heart for the nonce, — 
 (Hugging his hell, so that once 
 
 He might yet bring down the house ! ) 
 
 From the commons, gross and simple, 
 Of a blind and bloody land, 
 
 (Long fed on venomous lies !) — 
 To the horrid heart and hand 
 That sumless murder dyes — 
 The hand that drew the wimple 
 Over those cruel eyes, 
 
 Pass on, — your deeds are done, 
 Forever sets your sun ; 
 
 Vainly ye lived or died, 
 'Gainst Freedom and the Laws, — 
 And your memory and your cause 
 
 Shall haunt o'er the trophied tide, 
 
 Like some Pirate Caravel floating 
 Dreadful, adrift — whose crew 
 
 From her yard-arms dangle rotting — 
 The old Horror of the blue. 
 
 Avoid ye, — let the morrow 
 
 Sentence or mercy see. 
 Pass to your place : our sorrow 
 121 
 
Is all too dark to borrow 
 One shade from such as ye. 
 
 But if one, with merciful eyes, 
 From the forgiving skies 
 
 Looks, 'mid our gloom, to see 
 Yonder where Murder lies, 
 Stripped of the woman guise, 
 
 And waiting the doom — 'tis he. 
 
 Kindly Spirit ! — Ah, when did treason 
 Bid such a generous nature cease, 
 
 Mild by temper and strong by reason, 
 But ever leaning to love and peace ? 
 
 A head how sober ; a heart how spacious ; 
 
 A manner equal with high or low ; 
 Rough but gentle, uncouth but gracious, 
 
 And still inclining to lips of woe. 
 
 Patient when saddest, calm when sternest, 
 Grieved when rigid for justice' sake ; 
 
 Given to jest, yet ever in earnest 
 
 If aught of right or truth were at stake. 
 
 Simple of heart, yet shrewd therewith, 
 
 Slow to resolve, but firm to hold ; 
 
 122 
 
Still with parable and with myth 
 Seasoning truth, like Them of old ; 
 
 Aptest humor and quaintest pith ! 
 (Still we smile o'er the tales he told.) 
 
 And if, sometimes, in saddest stress, 
 That mind, over-meshed by fate, 
 (Ringed round with treason and hate, 
 
 And guiding the State by guess,) 
 Could doubt and could hesitate — 
 
 Who, alas, had done less 
 
 In the world's most deadly strait ? 
 
 But how true to the Common Cause ! 
 
 Of his task how unweary ! 
 How hard he worked, how good he was, 
 
 How kindly and cheery ! 
 
 How, while it marked redouble 
 The howls and hisses and sneers, 
 
 That great heart bore our trouble 
 Through all these terrible years ; 
 
 And, cooling passion with state, 
 
 And ever counting the cost, 
 Kept the Twin World- Robbers in wait 
 
 Till the time for their clutch was lost. 
 123 
 
How much he cared for the State, 
 
 How little for praise or pelf ! 
 A man too simply great 
 
 To scheme for his proper self. 
 
 But in mirth that strong heart rested 
 
 From its strife with the false and violent, - 
 
 A jester! — So Henry jested, 
 So jested William the Silent. 
 
 Orange, shocking the dull 
 
 With careless conceit and quip, 
 
 Yet holding the dumb heart full 
 With Holland's life on his lip ! 
 
 Navarre, bonhomme and pleasant, 
 
 Pitying the poor man's lot, 
 Wishing that every peasant 
 
 A chicken had in his pot ; 
 
 Feeding the stubborn bourgeois, 
 
 Though Paris still held out ; 
 Holding the League in awe, 
 
 But jolly with all about. 
 
 Out of an o'erflowed fulness 
 
 Those deep hearts seemed too light, — 
 124 
 
(And so 'twas, murder's dulness 
 Was set with sullener spite.) 
 
 Yet whoso might pierce the guise 
 Of mirth in the man we mourn, 
 
 Would mark, and with grieved surprise, 
 All the great soul had borne, 
 
 In the piteous lines, and the kind, sad eyes 
 So dreadfully wearied and worn. 
 
 And we trusted, (the last dread page 
 
 Once turned, of our Dooms-day Scroll, ) 
 To have seen him, sunny of soul, 
 
 In a cheery, grand old age. 
 
 But, Father, 'tis well with thee ! 
 
 And since ever, when God draws nigh, 
 Some grief for the good must be, 
 
 'Twas well, even so to die, — 
 
 'Mid the thunder of Treason's fall, 
 The yielding of haughty town, 
 
 The crashing of cruel wall, 
 
 The trembling of tyrant crown ! 
 
 The ringing of hearth and pavement 
 To the clash of falling chains, — 
 125 
 
The centuries of enslavement 
 
 Dead, with their blood-bought gains ! 
 
 And through trouble weary and long 
 Well hadst thou seen the way, 
 
 Leaving the State so strong 
 It did not reel for a day ; 
 
 And even in death couldst give 
 A token for Freedom's strife — - 
 
 A proof how republics live, 
 And not by a single life, 
 
 But the Right Divine of man, 
 
 And the many, trained to be free, — 
 
 And none, since the world began, 
 Ever was mourned like thee. 
 
 Dost thou feel it, O noble Heart ! 
 
 (So grieved and so wronged below,) 
 From the rest wherein thou art ? 
 Do they see it, those patient eyes ? 
 Is there heed in the happy skies 
 
 For tokens of world-wide woe ? 
 
 The Land's great lamentations, 
 The mighty mourning of cannon, 
 126 
 
The myriad flags half-mast — 
 The late remorse of the nations, 
 Grief from Volga to Shannon ! 
 (Now they know thee at last.) 
 
 How, from gray Niagara's shore 
 To Canaveral's surfy shoal — 
 
 From the rough Atlantic roar 
 To the long Pacific roll — 
 For bereavement and for dole, 
 
 Every cottage wears its weed, 
 White as thine own pure soul, 
 
 And black as the traitor deed. 
 
 How, under a nation's pall, 
 The dust so dear in our sight 
 To its home on the prairie past, 
 The leagues of funeral, 
 
 The myriads, morn and night, 
 Pressing to look their last. 
 
 Nor alone the State's Eclipse; 
 
 But how tears in hard eyes gather - 
 And on rough and bearded lips, 
 Of the regiments and the ships — 
 
 "Oh, our dear Father!" 
 127 
 
And methinks of all the million 
 
 That looked on the dark dead face, 
 'Neath its sable-plumed pavilion, 
 
 The crone of a humbler race 
 Is saddest of all to think on, 
 
 And the old swart lips that said, 
 Sobbing, " Abraham Lincoln ! 
 
 Oh, he is dead, he is dead ! " 
 
 Hush ! let our heavy souls 
 
 To-day be glad ; for agen 
 The stormy music swells and rolls, 
 
 Stirring the hearts of men. 
 
 And under the Nation's Dome, 
 
 They 've guarded so well and long, 
 
 Our boys come marching home, 
 Two hundred thousand strong. 
 
 All in the pleasant month of May, 
 With war-worn colors and drums, 
 
 Still though the livelong summer's day, 
 Regiment, regiment comes. 
 
 Like the tide, yesty and barmy, 
 That sets on a wild lee-shore, 
 128 
 
Surge the ranks of an army 
 Never reviewed before ! 
 
 Who shall look on the like agen, 
 Or see such host of the brave ? 
 
 A mighty River of marching men 
 Rolls the Capital through — 
 
 Rank on rank, and wave on wave, 
 Of bayonet-crested blue ! 
 
 How the chargers neigh and champ, 
 (Their riders weary of camp,) 
 
 With curvet and with caracole ! — 
 The cavalry comes with thundrous tramp, 
 
 And the cannons heavily roll. 
 
 And ever, flowery and gay, 
 The Staff sweeps on in a spray 
 
 Of tossing forelocks and manes ; 
 But each bridle-arm has a weed 
 Of funeral, black as the steed 
 
 That fiery Sheridan reins. 
 
 Grandest of mortal sights 
 
 The sun-browned ranks to view — 
 The Colors ragg'd in a hundred fights, 
 
 And the dusty Frocks of Blue ! 
 129 
 
And all day, mile on mile, 
 
 With cheer, and waving, and smile, 
 
 The war-worn legions defile 
 
 Where the nation's noblest stand ; 
 And the Great Lieutenant looks on, 
 
 With the Flower of a rescued Land, - 
 For the terrible work is done, 
 And the Good Fight is won 
 
 For God and for Fatherland. 
 
 So, from the fields they win, 
 Our men are marching home, 
 A million are marching home ! 
 
 To the cannon's thundering din, 
 And banners on mast and dome, — 
 
 And the ships come sailing in 
 With all their ensigns dight, 
 As erst for a great sea-fight. 
 
 Let every color fly, 
 
 Everj r pennon flaunt in pride ; 
 Wave, Starry Flag, on high ! 
 Float in the sunny sky, 
 
 Stream o'er the stormy tide ! 
 For every stripe of stainless hue, 
 And every star in the field of blue, 
 130 
 
Ten thousand of the brave and true 
 Have laid them down and died. 
 
 And in all our pride to-day 
 We think, with a tender pain, 
 
 Of those so far away 
 
 They will not come home again. 
 
 And our boys had fondly thought, 
 
 To-day, in marching by, 
 From the ground so dearly bought, 
 And the fields so bravely fought, 
 
 To have met their Father's eye. 
 
 But they may not see him in place, 
 Nor their ranks be seen of him ; 
 
 We look for the well-known face, 
 And the splendor is strangely dim. 
 
 Perished ? — who was it said 
 Our Leader had passed away ? 
 
 Dead ? Our President dead ? 
 He has not died for a day ! 
 
 We mourn for a little breath 
 
 Such as, late or soon, dust yields; 
 
 I3 1 
 
But the Dark Flower of Death 
 Blooms in the fadeless fields. 
 
 We looked on a cold, still brow, 
 But Lincoln could yet survive; 
 He never was more alive, 
 
 Never nearer than now. 
 
 For the pleasant season found him, 
 Guarded by faithful hands, 
 In the fairest of Summer Lands ; 
 
 With his own brave Staff" around him, 
 There our President stands. 
 
 There they are all at his side, 
 The noble hearts and true, 
 That did all men might do — 
 
 Then slept, with their swords, and died. 
 
 Of little the storm has reft us 
 
 But the brave and kindly clay — 
 
 ('Tis but dust where Lander left us, 
 And but turf where Lyon lay.) 
 
 There 's Winthrop, true to the end, 
 And Ellsworth of long ago, 
 132 
 
(First fair young head laid low !) 
 There 's Baker, the brave old friend, 
 And Douglas, the friendly foe. 
 
 (Baker, that still stood up 
 
 When 'twas death on either hand ; 
 " 'Tis a soldier's part to stoop, 
 
 But the Senator must stand.") 
 
 The heroes gather and form, — 
 There 's Cameron, with his scars, 
 
 Sedgwick, of siege and storm, 
 
 And Mitchell, that joined his stars. 
 
 Winthrop, of sword and pen, 
 Wadsworth, with silver hair, 
 
 Mansfield, ruler of men, 
 
 And brave McPherson are there. 
 
 Birney, who led so long, 
 Abbott, born to command, 
 
 Elliott the bold, and Strong, 
 
 Who fell on the hard-fought strand. 
 
 Lytle, soldier and bard, 
 
 And the Ellets, sire and son — 
 Ransom, all grandly scarred, 
 And Redfield, no more on guard, 
 
 (But Alatoona is won !) 
 
 J 33 
 
Reno, of pure desert, 
 
 Kearney, with heart of flame, 
 And Russell, that hid his hurt 
 
 Till the final death-bolt came ; 
 
 Terrill, dead where he fought, 
 Wallace, that would not yield, 
 
 And Sumner, who vainly sought 
 A grave on the foughten field, 
 
 (But died ere the end he saw, 
 
 With years and battles outworn.) 
 There 's Harmon of Kenesaw, 
 And Ulric Dahlgren, and Shaw, 
 That slept with his Hope Forlorn. 
 
 Bayard, that knew not fear, 
 (True as the knight of yore,) 
 
 And Putnam, and Paul Revere, 
 Worthy the names they bore. 
 
 Allen, who died for others, 
 
 Bryan, of gentle fame, 
 And the brave New England brothers 
 
 That have left us Lowell's name. 
 
 Home, at last, from the wars, — 
 Stedman, the staunch and mild, 
 
 134 
 
And Janeway, our hero-child, 
 Home, with his fifteen scars ! 
 
 There *s Porter, ever in front, 
 
 True son of a sea-king sire, 
 And Christian Foote, and Dupont, 
 (Dupont, who led his ships 
 Rounding the first Ellipse 
 
 Of thunder and of fire.) 
 
 There 's Ward, with his brave death-wounds, 
 And Cummings, of spotless name, 
 
 And Smith, who hurtled his rounds 
 When deck and hatch were aflame ; 
 
 Wainwright, steadfast and true, 
 
 Rodgers, of brave sea-blood, 
 And Craven, with ship and crew 
 
 Sunk in the salt sea flood. 
 
 And, a little later to part, 
 
 Our Captain, noble and dear — 
 (Did they deem thee, then, austere ? 
 
 Drayton ! — O pure and kindly heart ! 
 Thine is the seaman's tear.) 
 
 All such, — and many another, 
 (Ah, list how long to name ! ) 
 
 135 
 
That stood like brother by brother, 
 And died on the field of fame. 
 
 And around — (for there can cease 
 This earthly trouble) — they throng, 
 
 The friends that had passed in peace, 
 The foes that have seen their wrong. 
 
 (But, a little from the rest, 
 With sad eyes looking down, 
 And brows of softened frown, 
 
 With stern arms on the chest, 
 
 Are two, standing abreast — 
 
 Stonewall and Old John Brown.) 
 
 But the stainless and the true, 
 These by their President stand, 
 
 To look on his last review, 
 
 Or march with the old command. 
 
 And lo, from a thousand fields, 
 From all the old battle-haunts, 
 
 A greater Army than Sherman wields, 
 A grander Review than Grant's ! 
 
 Gathered home from the grave, 
 Risen from sun and rain — 
 
 136 
 
Rescued from wind and wave 
 Out of the stormy main — 
 
 The Legions of our Brave 
 Are all in their lines again ! 
 
 Many a stout Corps that went, 
 Full-ranked, from camp and tent, 
 
 And brought back a brigade ; 
 Many a brave regiment, 
 
 That mustered only a squad. 
 
 The lost battalions, 
 
 That, when the fight went wrong, 
 Stood and died at their guns, — 
 
 The stormers steady and strong, 
 
 With their best blood that bought 
 Scarp, and ravelin, and wall, — 
 
 The companies that fought 
 
 Till a corporal's guard was all. 
 
 Many a valiant crew, 
 
 That passed in battle and wreck, - 
 Ah, so faithful and true ! 
 
 They died on the bloody deck, 
 They sank in the soundless blue. 
 
 137 
 
All the loyal and bold 
 
 That lay on a soldier's bier, — 
 The stretchers borne to the rear, 
 
 The hammocks lowered to the hold. 
 
 The shattered wreck we hurried, 
 In death- fight, from deck and port, ■ 
 
 The Blacks that Wagner buried — 
 That died in the Bloody Fort ! 
 
 Comrades of camp and mess, 
 
 Left, as they lay, to die, 
 In the battle's sorest stress, 
 
 When the storm of fight swept by, - 
 They lay in the Wilderness, 
 
 Ah, where did they not lie ? 
 
 In the tangled swamp they lay, 
 
 They lay so still on the sward ! — 
 They rolled in the sick-bay, 
 Moaning their lives away — 
 
 They flushed in the fevered ward. 
 
 They rotted in Libby yonder, 
 
 They starved in the foul stockade — 
 
 Hearing afar the thunder 
 Of the Union cannonade ! 
 
But the old wounds all are healed, 
 And the dungeoned limbs are free, - 
 
 The Blue Frocks rise from the field, 
 The Blue Jackets out of the sea. 
 
 They 7 ve 'scaped from the torture-den, 
 They 've broken the bloody sod, 
 
 They 're all come to life agen ! — 
 
 The Third of a Million men 
 
 That died for Thee and for God ! 
 
 A tenderer green than May 
 The Eternal Season wears, — 
 
 The blue of our summer's day 
 Is dim and pallid to theirs, — 
 
 The Horror faded away, 
 
 And 'twas heaven all unawares ! 
 
 Tents on the Infinite Shore ! 
 
 Flags in the azuline sky, 
 Sails on the seas once more ! 
 
 To-day, in the heaven on high, 
 All under arms once more ! 
 
 The troops are all in their lines, 
 The guidons nutter and play ; 
 
 But every bayonet shines, 
 For all must march to-day. 
 
 139 
 
What lofty pennons flaunt ? 
 What mighty echoes haunt, 
 
 As of great guns, o'er the main ? 
 
 Hark to the sound again — 
 The Congress is all a-taunt ! 
 
 The Cumberland 's manned again ! 
 
 All the ships and their men 
 
 Are in line of battle to-day, — 
 
 All at quarters, as when 
 
 Their last roll thundered away, — 
 
 All at their guns, as then, 
 For the Fleet salutes to-day. 
 
 The armies have broken camp 
 On the vast and sunny plain, 
 The drums are rolling again ; 
 
 With steady, measured tramp, 
 They 're marching all again. 
 
 With alignment firm and solemn, — 
 
 Once again they form 
 In mighty square and column, 
 
 But never for charge and storm. 
 
 The Old Flag they died under 
 Floats above them on the shore, 
 140 
 
And on the great ships yonder 
 The ensigns dip once more — 
 
 And once again the thunder 
 Of the thirty guns and four! 
 
 In solid platoons of steel, 
 
 Under heaven's triumphal arch, 
 
 The long lines break and wheel — 
 
 And the word is, " Forward, march ! " 
 
 The Colors ripple o'erhead, 
 The drums roll up to the sky, 
 
 And with martial time and tread 
 The regiments all pass by — 
 
 The ranks of our faithful Dead, 
 Meeting their President's eye. 
 
 With a soldier's quiet pride 
 
 They smile o'er the perished pain, 
 For their anguish was not vain — 
 
 For thee, O Father, we died ! 
 And we did not die in vain. 
 
 March on, your last brave mile ! 
 
 Salute him, Star and Lace, 
 Form round him, rank and file, 
 
 And look on the kind, rough face ; 
 141 
 
But the quaint and homely smile 
 Has a glory and a grace 
 
 It never had known erewhile — 
 Never, in time and space. 
 
 Close round him, hearts of pride ! 
 Press near him, side by side, — 
 
 Our Father is not alone ! 
 For the Holy Right ye died 
 And Christ, the Crucified, 
 
 Waits to welcome his own. 
 
FROM"iEON" 
 
 To an else unquiet bosom 
 
 Ye how gentle, each and all .' 
 Dear the glory of the blossom, 
 
 Sweet the sadness of the fall. 
 
 Summer's flush of sultry splendor, — 
 Winter's tempest-whitened waves — 
 
 Spring's sweet passion — autumn's tender 
 Sunshine on forgotten graves. 
 
 Misty pines that glow and quiver 
 O'er the blue and burning plain, — 
 
 Moss-grey rock and leaden river, 
 Lost in cold autumnal rain. 
 
 Yellow gleams where day is dying, 
 
 Cold-barred clouds, dark blue and dun — 
 
 And the bare brown meadows lying 
 In the low slant winter sun. 
 
 Mighty halls of dun and amber — 
 Thunder, when the dark sky nods, 
 
 Rolling through each vaulted chamber 
 Like the laughter of the gods. 
 
 '43 
 
Lightnings in their midnight onset, 
 
 Like a sudden lurid dawn, 
 Or a pallid, ghastly sunset 
 
 Seen an instant and withdrawn. 
 
 Level beams that sunset launches, 
 Rosy drifts o'er fields that lie, 
 
 Hollows blue that shadow blanches, 
 Trunks suffused in orange dye — 
 
 All their net of wintry branches 
 Brown against a golden sky. 
 
 Massy, broad whale-backs of billows, 
 Lifting o'er some sunken ledge ; 
 
 Still, black ponds beneath old willows ; 
 Melancholy miles of sedge. 
 
 Cloud-banks in the leaden offing, — 
 The low ground-swell, feeling ground, 
 
 Like the clods upon a coffin, 
 
 Heard with dull and heavy sound. 
 
 Wild, low-lying scud that hurries 
 
 Swift o'erhead, — while o'er the deep, 
 
 Past some crag, in circling flurries, 
 Flaws, like ruffled falcons, sweep. 
 
 144 
 
Dear alike in sun or shadow — 
 
 Autumn glory doffed or donned — 
 
 Purple woodland, tawny meadow, 
 And the cold blue hills beyond. 
 
 When the rusty boughs are swaying, 
 And in eddies, on the ground, 
 
 The dry leaves, like children playing, 
 Chase each other round and round. 
 
 When the long tree shadows spindle, 
 Eastward flung o'er level snow, 
 
 And old farm-house windows kindle - 
 All their wrinkled panes aglow — 
 
 As the wintry day doth dwindle, 
 And the setting sun burns low. 
 
FROM "GULF-WEED" 
 
 (a poem read at the third annual reunion 
 
 of the society of the army and navy of 
 
 the gulf, newport, july 7, 1871.) 
 
 Aye, we cannot all forget, since last in joy we met, 
 Our noblest and our best has crossed the Nar- 
 row Tide : 
 He has laid him down to rest, the union on his 
 breast, 
 And the brave old sword by his side. 
 
 And now, by sea and shore, we shall meet him 
 never more, 
 Never clasp again that hearty, true right 
 hand — 
 Never more amid us here, shall he come, with 
 kindly cheer, 
 To greet his Brother Captains of ocean or of 
 land. 
 
 Never again, from mizen or from main, 
 
 Sight o'er the cannon-haze, by bellowing Pass 
 or Bay — 
 
 146 
 
The great sea-fights are done, and the quiet shore 
 is won, 
 And the smoke of battle forever rolled away. 
 
 The ships shall rot to dust, and the cannons scale 
 to rust ; 
 But it will not fade, that grand and pure Re- 
 nown, 
 While the navies ride upon the stormy tide, 
 While the long line-gales go thundering down ! 
 
 In the Nation's troubled hour, 't was not for rank 
 nor power, 
 Nor even for the fame he won and wore so 
 well — 
 But for Freedom's holy cause, and for just and 
 equal laws, 
 He dared the iron shower, he hurled the victor 
 shell. 
 
 'T is deed becomes the great, more than reward or 
 state: 
 Methought that he was grander in his mien 
 Ringed round with flame and wreck, on the old 
 Hartford's deck, 
 Than when the honored guest of Emperor or 
 Queen. 
 
 147 
 
What though weeds be worn — to-night we will 
 not mourn 
 A Name whose glory shall float o'er land and 
 wave! 
 Aye, our Admiral is gone — but a nation's life is 
 won, 
 And a nation's love and honor shall ever crown 
 his grave. 
 
 Meet him never more ? — we shall meet him on 
 the Shore 
 Where the gentle and the brave land from life's 
 stormy main — 
 Where his old captains wait — where Craven 's 
 past the strait, 
 Where Wainwright 's risen, where Drayton has 
 met his Chief again. 
 
 And I trust that not for self, nor for hate, nor 
 pride, nor pelf, 
 Each and all we drew the sword — but because 
 full well we knew, 
 Were the Land to rise again from her couch of 
 mortal pain, 
 Here was hard and heavy work that some of us 
 must do ! 
 
 148 
 
Not ours the craze for fight — but there is a 
 wrong and right ! 
 So to the work we went, Blue Jacket and Blue 
 Frock, 
 Much like old Putnam when he sought, 'mid 
 Pomfret's Den, 
 The couchant eyes of coal in that black rift of 
 rock. 
 
 And seven fair springs have shone, and seven wild 
 winters blown, 
 Since in his bloody lair we grappled the Gray 
 Wolf! 
 But 'twill toll, a century's knell, and our children's 
 children tell 
 Of the Army and the Navy of the Gulf. 
 
THE BURIAL OF THE DANE 
 
 Blue gulf all around us, 
 
 Blue sky overhead — 
 Muster all on the quarter, 
 
 We must bury the dead ! 
 
 It is but a Danish sailor, 
 
 Rugged of front and form ; 
 A common son of the forecastle, 
 
 Grizzled with sun and storm. 
 
 His name, and the strand he hailed from 
 We know — and there 1 s nothing more ! 
 
 But perhaps his mother is waiting 
 In the lonely Island of Fohr. 
 
 Still, as he lay there dying, 
 
 Reason drifting awreck, 
 " 'Tis my watch," he would mutter, 
 
 " I must go upon deck ! " 
 
 Aye, on deck — by the foremast ! — 
 But watch and look-out are done ; 
 150 
 
The Union-Jack laid o'er him, 
 How quiet he lies in the sun ! 
 
 Slow the ponderous engine, 
 
 Stay the hurrying shaft .' 
 Let the roll of the ocean 
 
 Cradle our giant craft — 
 Gather around the grating, 
 
 Carry your messmate aft ! 
 
 Stand in order, and listen 
 
 To the holiest page of prayer ! 
 
 Let every foot be quiet, 
 Every head be bare — 
 
 The soft trade-wind is lifting 
 A hundred locks of hair. 
 
 Our captain reads the service, 
 (A little spray on his cheeks,) 
 
 The grand old words of burial, 
 And the trust a true heart seeks- — 
 
 " We therefore commit his body 
 To the deep " — and, as he speaks, 
 
 Launched from the weather railing, 
 Swift as the eye can mark, 
 151 
 
The ghastly, shotted hammock 
 Plunges, away from the shark, 
 
 Down, a thousand fathoms, 
 Down into the dark ! 
 
 A thousand summers and winters 
 The stormy Gulf shall roll 
 
 High o'er his canvas coffin, — 
 But, silence to doubt and dole ! 
 
 There 's a quiet harbor somewhere 
 For the poor a-weary soul. 
 
 Free the fettered engine, 
 Speed the tireless shaft ! 
 
 Loose to' gallant and topsail, 
 The breeze is fair abaft ! 
 
 Blue sea all around us, 
 
 Blue sky bright o'erhead — 
 
 Every man to his duty ! 
 We have buried our dead. 
 
 Steamship Cahawba, at Sea, Jan. 20th, 1858. 
 
AT SEA 
 
 Midnight in drear New England, 
 'Tis a driving storm of snow — 
 
 How the casement clicks and rattles, 
 And the wind keeps on to blow ! 
 
 For a thousand leagues of coast-line, 
 
 In fitful flurries and starts, 
 The wild North-Easter is knocking 
 
 At lonely windows and hearts. 
 
 Of a night like this, how many 
 Must sit by the hearth, like me, 
 
 Hearing the stormy weather, 
 And thinking of those at sea ! 
 
 Of the hearts chilled through with watching, 
 
 The eyes that wearily blink, 
 Through the blinding gale and snow-drift, 
 
 For the Lights of Navesink ! 
 
 How fares it, my friend, with you ? — 
 If I 've kept your reckoning aright, 
 
 !53 
 
The brave old ship must be due 
 On our dreary coast, to-night. 
 
 The fireside fades before me, 
 
 The chamber quiet and warm — 
 
 And I see the gleam of her lanterns 
 In the wild Atlantic storm. 
 
 Like a dream, 'tis all around me — 
 The gale, with its steady boom, 
 
 And the crest of every roller 
 Torn into mist and spume — 
 
 The sights and the sounds of Ocean 
 On a night of peril and gloom. 
 
 The shroud of snow and of spoon-drift 
 Driving like mad a-lee — 
 
 And the huge black hulk that wallows 
 Deep in the trough of the sea. 
 
 The creak of cabin and bulkhead, 
 The wail of rigging and mast — 
 
 The roar of the shrouds, as she rises 
 From a deep lee-roll to the blast. 
 
 The sullen throb of the engine, 
 Whose iron heart never tires — 
 
 154 
 
The swarthy faces that redden 
 By the glare of his caverned fires. 
 
 The binnacle slowly swaying, 
 And nursing the faithful steel — 
 
 And the grizzled old quarter-master, 
 His horny hands on the wheel. 
 
 I can see it — the little cabin — 
 Plainly as if I were there — 
 
 The chart on the old green table, 
 The book, and the empty chair. 
 
 On the deck we have trod together, 
 A patient and manly form, 
 
 To and fro, by the foremast, 
 Is pacing in sleet and storm. 
 
 Since her keel first struck cold water, 
 By the Stormy Cape's clear Light, 
 
 'Tis little of sleep or slumber, 
 
 Hath closed o'er that watchful sight • 
 
 And a hundred lives are hanging 
 On eye and on heart to-night. 
 
 Would that to-night, beside him, 
 I walked the watch on her deck, 
 
 '55 
 
Recalling the Legends of Ocean, 
 Of ancient battle and wreck. 
 
 But the stout old craft is rolling 
 A hundred leagues a-lee — 
 
 Fifty of snow-wreathed hill-side, 
 And fifty of foaming sea. 
 
 I cannot hail him, nor press him 
 
 By the hearty and true right hand - 
 
 I can but murmur, — God bless him ! 
 And bring him safe to the land. 
 
 And send him the best of weather, 
 That, ere many suns shall shine, 
 
 We may sit by the hearth together, 
 And talk about Auld Lang Syne. 
 
 February 3rd, 1859. 
 
ANACREONTIC 
 
 " It is worth the labor, saith Plotinus, to consider well of Love, 
 whether it be a god or a divell, or passion of the minde, or partly 
 god, partly divell, partly passion. . . . Give me leave then (to 
 refresh my muse a little and my weary readers) to expatiate in this 
 debghtsome field, * hoc deliciarum campo,' as Fonseca terms it, 
 to season a surly discourse with a more pleasing aspersion of love- 
 matters. . . And there be those, without question, that are more 
 willing to reade such toyes, then I am to write." — Burton's 
 Anatomy of Melancholy. 
 
 Eros, graceless Wanton ! thou 
 Wast mine earliest playfellow. 
 Well I knew thee, roguish Elf ! 
 When an infant like thyself. 
 And thou still must needs abide 
 Clinging wilful to my side. 
 
 Every other frolic mate 
 Long has grown to man's estate — 
 Other childish sports have past, 
 Other toys aside are cast — 
 One alone could yet remain ; 
 'Tis the vainest of the vain ! 
 
 Still this fond and foolish heart 
 Must enact a childish part, 
 
 157 
 
And in Beauty's Presence still 
 Feel its wonted boyish thrill. 
 Chide thee — shun thee as I may, 
 Thou hast ever had thy way ; 
 Many a subtle snare hast laid — 
 Many a wanton trick hast played. 
 E'en at Learning's council sage, 
 Thou hast perched upon the page, 
 (Latin could not mar thy glee, 
 Greek was never Greek to thee,) 
 And when Wisdom should prevail, 
 Told me many a roguish tale, 
 Many a scene of vanished Love — 
 Dicte's cave and Ida's grove, 
 And the mountain fringed with fir, 
 And the paths beloved of Her, 
 Who the sleeping hunter eyed 
 Couched on Latmos' shaggy side. 
 Of each old enchanted spot — 
 Tyrian mead — Egerian grot — 
 Each dim haunt, remembered yet, 
 Where mortal with Immortal met — 
 Darksome glen and sunny glade — 
 And all the pranks that Sylvan played. 
 
 One kind turn I owe thee — one 
 Kindly office thou hast done. 
 158 
 
Ne'er shall I forget the hour, 
 When thy soft-persuading power 
 Led my footsteps, roving wide, 
 To the Sleeping Beauty's side. 
 Wearied, like a child from play, 
 Lightly slumbering, there she lay. 
 Half a crime though it might seem 
 To disturb so sweet a dream — 
 Yet, with tender, reverent soul, 
 Softly to her side I stole, 
 And the only means did take 
 Such a slumber e'er should wake. 
 
 Like a half-awakened child, 
 Gently then she moved and smiled : 
 With a soft and wondering glance - 
 Such as Gyneth wore, perchance, 
 When she oped her lovely eyes 
 From the sleep of centuries. 
 
PRESENTIMENT 
 
 Strange heaviness — I know not why, 
 
 The old grief, methought, had grown more 
 light — 
 
 And no new ill hath chanced — yet I 
 Am very sorrowful to-night. 
 
 It is not that I cannot bear 
 
 The burden countless hearts have borne — 
 It is not that I shrink to wear 
 
 The garment countless limbs have worn — 
 
 Nor that, through sordid care and strife, 
 The soul her comrade must sustain, 
 
 To draw with pain the breath of life, 
 
 And break their daily bread with pain — 
 
 (So fiercely hath it drunk of joy, 
 So deeply drained the dregs of woe, 
 
 That common grief may scarce annoy, 
 
 And common good were pale and low) — 
 
 But that, to-night, from out the throng 
 Some surlier shadow flickers still — 
 160 
 
Some wraith of old ancestral wrong, 
 Or cold rapport of coming ill. 
 
 Haunt, an thou will, gray evil gone ! 
 
 Thrill, an 'tis thou, dumb pang to be ! 
 The heart can hold ye both at one, 
 
 That knows a sadder guest than ye. 
 
MIDNIGHT— A LAMENT 
 
 Do the dead carry their cares, 
 
 Like us, to the place of rest ? 
 The long, long night — is it theirs, 
 
 Weary to brain and breast ? 
 Ah, that I knew how it fares 
 
 With one that I loved the best ! 
 
 I lie alone in the house. 
 
 How the wretched North-wind raves ! 
 I listen, and think of those 
 
 O'er whose heads the wet grass waves - 
 Do they hear the wind that blows, 
 
 And the rain on their lonely graves ? 
 
 Heads that I helped to lay 
 
 On the pillow that lasts for aye, 
 
 It is but a little way 
 
 To the dreary hill where they lie — 
 
 No bed but the cold, cold clay — 
 No roof but the stormy sky. 
 
 Cruel the thought and vain ! 
 
 They 've now nothing more to bear — 
 162 
 
Done with sickness and pain, 
 Done with trouble and care — 
 
 But I hear the wind and the rain, 
 And still I think of them there. 
 
 Ah, couldst thou come to me, 
 Bird that I loved the best ! 
 
 That I knew it was well with thee - 
 Wild and weary North- West ! 
 
 Wail in chimney and tree — 
 Leave to the dead their rest. 
 
IN ARTICULO MORTIS 
 
 The monarchy is very old," he said, 
 
 " But it will last my time — then, after us, 
 The Deluge ! " and meanwhile, (his thought 
 ran thus,) 
 Our Pare au Cerfs — and Damiens to his bed 
 Of fire and steel. A little, and men see 
 
 That plague-scored lump, gasping, " Je sens la 
 
 MortP 
 (Had that brief word been thine, ah, long before ! 
 France had been happier — and 'twere well 
 
 with thee.) 
 One cries, " The King is dead — long live the 
 King ! " 
 What loyal haste in every heart prevails ! 
 In yon deserted room a hideous thing 
 
 Through open windows taints the soft spring 
 gales. 
 Hear the stampede of Courtiers, echoing 
 
 Like thunder through the galleries of Ver- 
 sailles. 
 
 164 
 
QU'IL MOURUT 
 
 Not a sob, not a tear be spent 
 
 For those who fell at his side — 
 
 But a moan and a long lament 
 
 For him — who might have died ! 
 
 Who might have lain, as Harold lay, 
 A King, and in state enow — 
 
 Or slept with his peers, like Roland 
 In the Straits of Roncesvaux. 
 
 165 
 
MARE NON CLAUSUM 
 
 As one who, for a bark that nevermore 
 
 Shall meet her gaze, still looking wearily, 
 Wanders, in wistful longing, on the shore 
 Of the vast, desolate sea — 
 
 Thus, in vague quest of that she gathers not, 
 The Soul along Life's margin lingereth — 
 And, musing on the inevitable lot, 
 
 Walks by the waves of Death — 
 
 Of that drear flood, whose ne'er-surveyed extent 
 
 This our existence ever darkens round — 
 Amid whose barren waste nor continent 
 Nor island hath been found ! 
 
 Yet Hope, Columbus-like, would fondly deem 
 Far in those gloomy depths a Land may lie, 
 Of beauty never dreamed in human dream, 
 Ne'er seen with human eye ! 
 
 And when her timid feet the chill tide laves, 
 
 Voices, nigh lost, come from that far-off 
 Land — 
 
 166 
 
Lost in the wearying of a thousand waves 
 Tumultuous on Life's strand. 
 
 How fare they — parting souls — that, ferried o'er, 
 
 See all the known receding far behind — 
 And catch, as yet, no glimpse of that dim shore 
 That waits the eternal Mind ? 
 
 THE END