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
Of Santa Rosa's withered
beach,
And Pensacola's ruined wall.
And weary
was the long patrol,
The thousand miles of shapeless
strand,
From Brazos to San Blas 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.
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
weary 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,
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.
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
mizzen 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!
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 villainous 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,
(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 the 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!�
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.
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.
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
(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 mainmast 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!
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�
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.
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�
The Ram is again under way,
And heading dead for the Flag!
Steering up with the
stream,
Boldly his course, he lay,
Though the fleet
all answered his fire,
And, as he still drew nigher,
Ever on bow and beam
Our Monitors pounded away�
How
the Chickasaw 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
Lackawanna hit fair,
He flung her aside like cork,
And still he held for the Flag.
High in the mizzen
shroud
(Lest the smoke his sight o'erwhelm),
Our
Admiral's voice rang loud,
'Hard-a-starboard your helm!
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!'
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 Lackawanna 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!
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'll never again see land�
Try that on him, 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 had but a minute to choose;
Life or renown?�which now
Will the Rebel Admiral
lose?
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�
Ay, 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! |
