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God's mercy! from her sloping roof
The iron tempest glanced,

As hail bounds from a cottage-thatch,
And round her leap'd and danced;

Or when against her dusky hull
We struck a fair, full blow,
The mighty, solid iron globes
Were crumbled up like snow.

On, on, with fast increasing speed,
The silent monster came,
Though all our starboard battery
Was one long line of flame.

She heeded not; no guns she fired; Straight on our bows she bore ; Through riving plank and crashing frame Her furious way she tore.

Alas! our beautiful, keen bow,
That in the fiercest blast
So gently folded back the seas,
They hardly felt we pass'd!

Alas! alas! my Cumberland,
That ne'er knew grief before,
To be so gored, to feel so deep
The tusk of that sea-boar!

Once more she backward drew apace;
Once more our side she rent,
Then, in the wantonness of hate,
Her broadside through us sent.

The dead and dying round us lay,
But our foeman lay abeam;

Her open port-holes madden'd us,
We fired with shout and scream.

We felt our vessel settling fast;

We knew our time was brief:

"Ho! man the pumps!" But they who work'd, And fought not, wept with grief.

"Oh! keep us but an hour afloat! Oh! give us only time

To mete unto yon rebel crew

The measure of their crime!"

From captain down to powder-boy,
No hand was idle then:

Two soldiers, but by chance aboard,
Fought on like sailor men.

And when a gun's crew lost a hand,
Some bold marine stepp'd out,
And jerk'd his braided jacket off,
And haul'd the gun about.

Our forward magazine was drown'd,
And up from the sick-bay

Crawl'd out the wounded, red with blood,
And round us gasping lay;—

Yes, cheering, calling us by name,
Struggling with failing breath
To keep their shipmates at the post
Where glory strove with death.

With decks afloat and powder gone,
The last broadside we gave

From the guns' heated iron lips

Burst out beneath the wave.

So sponges, rammers, and handspikes—
As men-of-war's men should-
We placed within their proper racks,
And at our quarters stood.

"Up to the spar deck! save yourselves!"
Cried Selfridge. "Up, my men!
God grant that some of us may live
To fight yon ship again!"

We turn'd: we did not like to go;
Yet staying seem'd but vain,
Knee-deep in water; so we left;

Some swore, some groan'd with pain.

We reach'd the deck. There Randall stood: "Another turn, men—so!"

Calmly he aim'd his pivot gun:

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'Now, Tenny, let her go!"

It did our sore hearts good to hear
The song our pivot sang,
As rushing on from wave to wave
The whirring bomb-shell sprang.

Brave Randall leap'd upon the gun,
And waved his cap in sport:

"Well done! well aim'd! I saw that shell

Go through an open port!”

It was our last, our deadliest shot;

The deck was overflown;

The poor ship stagger'd, lurch'd to port,

And gave a living groan.

Down, down, as headlong through the waves, Our gallant vessel rush'd;

A thousand gurgling watery sounds
Around my senses gush'd.

Then I remember little more;
One look to heaven I gave,
Where, like an angel's wing, I saw
Our spotless ensign wave.

I tried to cheer. I cannot say
Whether I swam or sank;

A blue mist closed around my eyes,
And every thing was blank.

When I awoke, a soldier lad,
All dripping from the sea,
With two great tears upon his cheeks,
Was bending over-me.

I tried to speak. He understood
The wish I could not speak.

He turn'd me. There, thank God! the flag
Still flutter'd at the peak!

And there, while thread shall hang to thread,
Oh, let that ensign fly!

The noblest constellation set
Against the northern sky,—

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An Invocation to Loyalty.

(EXTRACT FROM MR. MURDOCH'S LECTURES.)

"THE OATH," BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ, ESQ.

THIS poem was written by Mr. Read, a few days after the news reached Cincinnati of the brutal murder of General Robert McCook, who was shot by guerrillas, while sick and travelling, in Kentucky. It was a master-stroke of artistic effect and poetic inspiration which prompted Mr. Read to seize on the oath of the ghost in Hamlet and apply it to the sons of the men who have fought, bled, and died for our country.

Apart from the general merits of the poem, the appeal of the poet to the heroes of the past, and their answer, is intensely affecting, and reflects the highest credit upon one of the first lyrical writers of the age. I cannot refrain from referring to an exhibition of the grand and imposing effect of the recitation of this poem, under circumstances everyway calculated to test its power as an agent in arousing the sensibilities of those who are sometimes rendered, by frequent contact with violence, indifferent to the appeals of poetic imagery and inspired numbers.

While on a flying visit to my friend, General A. McDowell McCook, a few days after the battle of Chaplin Hills, in passing through Danville, Kentucky, I made a visit, in company with the general and his staff, to the house of a distinguished Kentucky statesman and loyal gentleman. While partaking of his hospitalities, and surrounded by many leading men of the neighborhood and several military gentlemen, the question of allegiance to the General

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