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 maintop and mizzen,
Darting up the shrouds like snakes!
Ah, how we clanked at the brakes,
And the deep steaming-pumps throbbed under,
Sending a ceaseless flow.
Our top-men, 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 above all 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,
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 depths 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 ablaze,
The great Anglo-Norman is all in flames,
(Hark to the roar of her tumbling frames!)
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, millstone 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 (By this, 't was pouring heavy), Stood a fierce and sullen train.
A strange and 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!
Newport News, Va.
A NAMELESS GRAVE.
SOLDIER of the Union mustered out,"
Is the inscription on an unknown grave
At Newport News, beside the salt-sea wave,
Nameless and dateless; sentinel or scout
Shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout
Of battle, when the loud artillery drave
Its iron wedges through the ranks of brave
And doomed battalions, storming the redoubt.
Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea
In thy forgotten grave! with secret shame
I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn,
When I remember thou hast given for me
All that thou hadst, thy life, thy very name,
And I can give thee nothing in return.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
CONEE! in my tranquil slumbers,
At the silent dead of night,
Oft I see thy golden waters
Flashing in the rosy light;
And flashing brightly, gushing river,
On the spirit of my dream,
As in moments fled forever,
When I wandered by thy stream, –
A forest lad, a careless rover,
Rising at the dawn of day,
With my dog and gun,
Shouting o'er the hills away,
And ever would my shoeless footprints Trace the shortest path to thee; There the plumpest squirrel ever Chuckled on the chestnut-tree.
And when, at noon, the sun of summer
Glowed too fiercely from the sky,
On thy banks were bowers grateful
To a rover such as I,
Among the forest branches woven
By the richly scented vine,
Yellow jasmine, honeysuckle,
And by creeping muscadine.
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