John Marr and Other Poems | Page 2

May-time o' pennoned young
fellows?This stripped old hulk here for years may
survive.
Ere yet, long ago, we were spliced, Bonny Blue,?(Silvery it gleams down the moon-glade o' time,?Ah, sugar in the bowl and berries in the prime!)?Coxswain I o' the Commodore's crew,--?Under me the fellows that manned his fine gig,?Spinning him ashore, a king in full fig.?Chirrupy even when crosses rubbed me,?Bridegroom Dick lieutenants dubbed me.?Pleasant at a yarn, Bob o' Linkum in a song,?Diligent in duty and nattily arrayed,?Favored I was, wife, and fleeted right along;?And though but a tot for such a tall grade,?A high quartermaster at last I was made.
All this, old lassie, you have heard before,?But you listen again for the sake e'en o' me;?No babble stales o' the good times o' yore?To Joan, if Darby the babbler be.
Babbler?--O' what? Addled brains, they
forget!?O--quartermaster I; yes, the signals set,?Hoisted the ensign, mended it when frayed,?Polished up the binnacle, minded the helm,?And prompt every order blithely obeyed.?To me would the officers say a word cheery--?Break through the starch o' the quarter-deck
realm;?His coxswain late, so the Commodore's pet.?Ay, and in night-watches long and weary,?Bored nigh to death with the navy etiquette,?Yearning, too, for fun, some younker, a cadet,?Dropping for time each vain bumptious trick,?Boy-like would unbend to Bridegroom Dick.?But a limit there was--a check, d' ye see:?Those fine young aristocrats knew their degree.
Well, stationed aft where their lordships
keep,--?Seldom going forward excepting to sleep,--?I, boozing now on by-gone years,?My betters recall along with my peers.?Recall them? Wife, but I see them plain:?Alive, alert, every man stirs again.?Ay, and again on the lee-side pacing,?My spy-glass carrying, a truncheon in show,?Turning at the taffrail, my footsteps retracing,?Proud in my duty, again methinks I go.?And Dave, Dainty Dave, I mark where he
stands,?Our trim sailing-master, to time the high-noon,?That thingumbob sextant perplexing eyes and
hands,?Squinting at the sun, or twigging o' the moon;?Then, touching his cap to Old Chock-a-Block?Commanding the quarter-deck,--"Sir, twelve
o'clock."
Where sails he now, that trim sailing-master,?Slender, yes, as the ship's sky-s'l pole??Dimly I mind me of some sad disaster--?Dainty Dave was dropped from the navy-roll!?And ah, for old Lieutenant Chock-a-Block--?Fast, wife, chock-fast to death's black dock!?Buffeted about the obstreperous ocean,?Fleeted his life, if lagged his promotion.?Little girl, they are all, all gone, I think,?Leaving Bridegroom Dick here with lids that
wink.
Where is Ap Catesby? The fights fought of
yore?Famed him, and laced him with epaulets, and
more.?But fame is a wake that after-wakes cross,?And the waters wallow all, and laugh
Where's the loss??But John Bull's bullet in his shoulder bearing?Ballasted Ap in his long sea-faring.?The middies they ducked to the man who had
messed?With Decatur in the gun-room, or forward
pressed?Fighting beside Perry, Hull, Porter, and the
rest.
Humped veteran o' the Heart-o'-Oak war,?Moored long in haven where the old heroes are,?Never on you did the iron-clads jar!?Your open deck when the boarder assailed,?The frank old heroic hand-to-hand then availed.
But where's Guert Gan? Still heads he the van??As before Vera-Cruz, when he dashed splashing
through?The blue rollers sunned, in his brave gold-andblue,
And, ere his cutter in keel took the strand,?Aloft waved his sword on the hostile land!?Went up the cheering, the quick chanticleering;?All hands vying--all colors flying:?"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" and "Row, boys, row!"?"Hey, Starry Banner!" "Hi, Santa Anna!"?Old Scott's young dash at Mexico.
Fine forces o' the land, fine forces o' the sea,?Fleet, army, and flotilla--tell, heart o' me,?Tell, if you can, whereaway now they be!
But ah, how to speak of the hurricane
unchained--?The Union's strands parted in the hawser
over-strained;?Our flag blown to shreds, anchors gone
altogether--?The dashed fleet o' States in Secession's foul
weather.
Lost in the smother o' that wide public stress,?In hearts, private hearts, what ties there were
snapped!?Tell, Hal--vouch, Will, o' the ward-room mess,?On you how the riving thunder-bolt clapped.?With a bead in your eye and beads in your glass,?And a grip o' the flipper, it was part and pass:?"Hal, must it be: Well, if come indeed the
shock,?To North or to South, let the victory cleave,?Vaunt it he may on his dung-hill the cock,?But Uncle Sam's eagle never crow will,
believe."
Sentiment: ay, while suspended hung all,?Ere the guns against Sumter opened there
the ball,?And partners were taken, and the red dance
began,?War's red dance o' death!--Well, we, to a man,?We sailors o' the North, wife, how could we
lag?--?Strike with your kin, and you stick to the flag!?But to sailors o' the South that easy way was
barred.?To some, dame, believe (and I speak o' what I
know),?Wormwood the trial and the Uzzite's black
shard;?And the faithfuller the heart, the crueller the
throe.?Duty? It pulled with more than one string,?This way and that, and anyhow a sting.?The flag and your kin, how be true unto both??If either plight ye keep, then ye break the other
troth.?But elect here they must, though the casuists
were out;?Decide--hurry up--and throttle every doubt.
Of all these thrills thrilled at keelson, and
throes,?Little felt the shoddyites a-toasting o' their
toes;?In mart and bazar Lucre chuckled the huzza,?Coining the dollars in the bloody mint of war.
But in