John Marr and Other Poems | Page 3

men, gray knights o' the Order o' Scars,?And brave boys bound by vows unto Mars,?Nature grappled honor, intertwisting in the
strife:--?But some cut the knot with a thoroughgoing
knife.?For how when the drums beat? How in the fray?In Hampton Roads on the fine balmy day?
There a lull, wife, befell--drop o' silent in the
din.?Let us enter that silence ere the belchings
re-begin.?Through a ragged rift aslant in the cannonade's
smoke?An iron-clad reveals her repellent broadside?Bodily intact. But a frigate, all oak,?Shows honeycombed by shot, and her deck
crimson-dyed.?And a trumpet from port of the iron-clad hails,?Summoning the other, whose flag never trails:?"Surrender that frigate, Will! Surrender,?Or I will sink her--ram, and end her!"
'T was Hal. And Will, from the naked heart-o'-oak,?Will, the old messmate, minus trumpet, spoke,?Informally intrepid,--"Sink her, and be
damned!"* [* Historic.]?Enough. Gathering way, the iron-clad rammed.?The frigate, heeling over, on the wave threw a
dusk.?Not sharing in the slant, the clapper of her bell?The fixed metal struck--uinvoked struck the
knell?Of the Cumberland stillettoed by the
Merrimac's tusk;?While, broken in the wound underneath the
gun-deck,?Like a sword-fish's blade in leviathan waylaid,?The tusk was left infixed in the fast-foundering
wreck.?There, dungeoned in the cockpit, the wounded
go down,?And the chaplain with them. But the surges
uplift?The prone dead from deck, and for moment
they drift?Washed with the swimmers, and the spent
swimmers drown.?Nine fathom did she sink,--erect, though hid
from light?Save her colors unsurrendered and spars that
kept the height.
Nay, pardon, old aunty! Wife, never let it fall,?That big started tear that hovers on the brim;?I forgot about your nephew and the Merrimac's
ball;?No more then of her, since it summons up him.?But talk o' fellows' hearts in the wine's genial
cup:--?Trap them in the fate, jam them in the strait,?Guns speak their hearts then, and speak
right up.?The troublous colic o' intestine war?It sets the bowels o' affection ajar.?But, lord, old dame, so spins the whizzing world,?A humming-top, ay, for the little boy-gods?Flogging it well with their smart little rods,?Tittering at time and the coil uncurled.
Now, now, sweetheart, you sidle away,?No, never you like that_ kind o' _gay;?But sour if I get, giving truth her due,?Honey-sweet forever, wife, will Dick be to you!
But avast with the War! 'Why recall racking
days?Since set up anew are the slip's started stays??Nor less, though the gale we have left behind,?Well may the heave o' the sea remind.?It irks me now, as it troubled me then,?To think o' the fate in the madness o' men.?If Dick was with Farragut on the night-river,?When the boom-chain we burst in the fire-raft's
glare,?That blood-dyed the visage as red as the liver;?In the Battle for the Bay too if Dick had a
share,?And saw one aloft a-piloting the war--?Trumpet in the whirlwind, a Providence in
place--?Our Admiral old whom the captains huzza,?Dick joys in the man nor brags about the race.
But better, wife, I like to booze on the days?Ere the Old Order foundered in these very
frays,?And tradition was lost and we learned strange
ways.?Often I think on the brave cruises then;?Re-sailing them in memory, I hail the press o'
men?On the gunned promenade where rolling they
go,?Ere the dog-watch expire and break up the
show.?The Laced Caps I see between forward guns;?Away from the powder-room they puff the
cigar;?"Three days more, hey, the donnas and the
dons!"?"Your Zeres widow, will you hunt her up,
Starr?"?The Laced Caps laugh, and the bright waves
too;?Very jolly, very wicked, both sea and crew,?Nor heaven looks sour on either, I guess,?Nor Pecksniff he bosses the gods' high mess.?Wistful ye peer, wife, concerned for my head,?And how best to get me betimes to my bed.
But king o' the club, the gayest golden spark,?Sailor o' sailors, what sailor do I mark??Tom Tight, Tom Tight, no fine fellow finer,?A cutwater nose, ay, a spirited soul;?But, bowsing away at the well-brewed bowl,?He never bowled back from that last voyage to
China.
Tom was lieutenant in the brig-o'-war famed?When an officer was hung for an arch-mutineer,?But a mystery cleaved, and the captain was
blamed,?And a rumpus too raised, though his honor
it was clear.?And Tom he would say, when the mousers
would try him,?And with cup after cup o' Burgundy ply him:?"Gentlemen, in vain with your wassail you
beset,?For the more I tipple, the tighter do I get."?No blabber, no, not even with the can--?True to himself and loyal to his clan.
Tom blessed us starboard and d--d us larboard,?Right down from rail to the streak o' the
garboard.?Nor less, wife, we liked him.--Tom was a man?In contrast queer with Chaplain Le Fan,?Who blessed us at morn, and at night yet again,?D--ning us only in decorous strain;?Preaching 'tween the guns--each cutlass in its
place--?From text that averred old Adam a hard case.?I see him--Tom--on horse-block standing,?Trumpet at mouth, thrown up all amain,?An elephant's bugle, vociferous demanding?Of topmen aloft in the hurricane of rain,?"Letting that sail there your faces flog??Manhandle it, men, and you'll get the good
grog!"?O Tom, but he knew a blue-jacket's ways,?And how a lieutenant may genially haze;?Only a sailor sailors heartily praise.
Wife, where be