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
again,�
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.
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-sheer were
dyed with blood,
'T is 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 starlight 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 't was sundered).
Under the night's
dark blue,
Steering steady and true,
Ship after ship
went through,
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 muscle 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,
'T was 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 morter,
'T was
the mighty sound and form
Of an equatorial storm!
Such you see in the Far South,
After long heat and drouth,
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).
'T was 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!
'T was 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.
(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 afire on our port quarter,
Hammocks ablaze in the netting,
Flames 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
Halfway to maintop 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 topmen, a dauntless crowd,
Swarmed in rigging and shroud�
There, ('t was a wonder!)
The burning ratlines 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
headway once more,
The whole rebel fleet came rounding
The point. If we had it hot before,
'T was 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.
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! |
