Can others like old ensigns be, Bunting I hoisted to flutter at the gaff-- Rags in end that once were flags Gallant streaming from the staff?
Such scurvy doom could the chances deal To Top-Gallant Harry and Jack Genteel?
Lo, Genteel Jack in hurricane weather, s.h.a.gged like a bear, like a red lion roaring; But O, so fine in his chapeau and feather, In port to the ladies never once _jawing;_ All bland _politesse,_ how urbane was he-- _"Oui, mademoiselle"--"Ma chere amie!"_
"T was Jack got up the ball at Naples, Gay in the old _Ohio_ glorious; His hair was curled by the berth-deck barber, Never you"d deemed him a cub of rude Boreas; In tight little pumps, with the grand dames in rout, A-flinging his shapely foot all about; His watch-chain with love"s jeweled tokens abounding, Curls ambrosial shaking out odors, Waltzing along the batteries, astounding The gunner glum and the grim-visaged loaders.
Wife, where be all these blades, I wonder, Pennoned fine fellows, so strong, so gay?
Never their colors with a dip dived under; Have they hauled them down in a lack-l.u.s.tre day, Or beached their boats in the Far, Far Away?
Hither and thither, blown wide asunder, Where"s this fleet, I wonder and wonder.
Slipt their cables, rattled their adieu, (Whereaway pointing? to what rendezvous?) Out of sight, out of mind, like the crack _Const.i.tution,_ And many a keel time never shall renew-- _Bon Homme d.i.c.k_ o" the buff Revolution, The _Black c.o.c.kade_ and the staunch _True-Blue._
Doff hats to Decatur! But where is his blazon?
Must merited fame endure time"s wrong-- Glory"s ripe grape wizen up to a raisin?
Yes! for Nature teems, and the years are strong, And who can keep the tally o" the names that fleet along!
But his frigate, wife, his bride? Would blacksmiths brown Into smithereens smite the solid old renown?
Rivetting the bolts in the iron-clad"s sh.e.l.l, Hark to the hammers with _a rat-tat-tat;_ "Handier a _derby_ than a laced c.o.c.ked hat!
The _Monitor_ was ugly, but she served us right well, Better than the _c.u.mberland,_ a beauty and the belle."
_Better than the c.u.mberland!_--Heart alive in me!
That battlemented hull, Tantallon o" the sea, Kicked in, as at Boston the taxed chests o" tea!
Ay, spurned by the _ram,_ once a tall, shapely craft, But lopped by the Rebs to an iron-beaked raft-- A blacksmith"s unicorn in armor _cap-a-pie_.
Under the water-line a _ram"s_ blow is dealt: And foul fall the knuckles that strike below the belt.
Nor brave the inventions that serve to replace The openness of valor while dismantling the grace.
Aloof from all this and the never-ending game, Tantamount to teetering, plot and counterplot; Impenetrable armor--all-perforating shot; Aloof, bless G.o.d, ride the war-ships of old, A grand fleet moored in the roadstead of fame; Not submarine sneaks with _them_ are enrolled; Their long shadows dwarf us, their flags are as flame.
Don"t fidget so, wife; an old man"s pa.s.sion Amounts to no more than this smoke that I puff; There, there, now, buss me in good old fashion; A died-down candle will flicker in the snuff.
But one last thing let your old babbler say, What Decatur"s c.o.xswain said who was long ago hea.r.s.ed, "Take in your flying-kites, for there comes a lubber"s day When gallant things will go, and the three- deckers first."
My pipe is smoked out, and the grog runs slack; But bowse away, wife, at your blessed Bohea; This empty can here must needs solace me-- Nay, sweetheart, nay; I take that back; d.i.c.k drinks from your eyes and he finds no lack!
TOM DEADLIGHT
During a tempest encountered homeward-bound from the Mediterranean, a grizzled petty-officer, one of the two captains of the forecastle, dying at night in his hammock, swung in the sick-bay under the tiered gun-decks of the British _Dreadnaught, 98,_ wandering in his mind, though with glimpses of sanity, and starting up at whiles, sings by s.n.a.t.c.hes his good-bye and last injunctions to two messmates, his watchers, one of whom fans the fevered tar with the flap of his old sou"wester. Some names and phrases, with here and there a line, or part of one; these, in his aberration, wrested into incoherency from their original connection and import, he voluntarily derives, as he does the measure, from a famous old sea-ditty, whose cadences, long rife, and now humming in the collapsing brain, attune the last flutterings of distempered thought.
Farewell and adieu to you n.o.ble hearties,-- Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain, For I"ve received orders for to sail for the Deadman, But hope with the grand fleet to see you again.
I have hove my ship to, with main-top-sail aback, boys; I have hove my ship to, for the strike soundings clear-- The black scud a"flying; but, by G.o.d"s blessing, dam" me, Right up the Channel for the Deadman I"ll steer.
I have worried through the waters that are called the Doldrums, And growled at Sarga.s.so that clogs while ye grope-- Blast my eyes, but the light-ship is hid by the mist, lads:-- _Flying Dutchman_--odds bobbs--off the Cape of Good Hope!
But what"s this I feel that is fanning my cheek, Matt?
The white goney"s wing?--how she rolls!-- "t is the Cape!-- Give my kit to the mess, Jock, for kin none is mine, none; And tell _Holy Joe_ to avast with the c.r.a.pe.
Dead reckoning, says _Joe_, it won"t do to go by; But they doused all the glims, Matt, in sky t" other night.
Dead reckoning is good for to sail for the Deadman; And Tom Deadlight he thinks it may reckon near right.
The signal!--it streams for the grand fleet to anchor.
The captains--the trumpets--the hullabaloo!
Stand by for blue-blazes, and mind your shank-painters, For the Lord High Admiral, he"s squinting at you!
But give me my _tot_, Matt, before I roll over; Jock, let"s have your flipper, it"s good for to feel; And don"t sew me up without _baccy_ in mouth, boys, And don"t blubber like lubbers when I turn up my keel.
JACK ROY
Kept up by relays of generations young Never dies at halyards the blithe chorus sung; While in sands, sounds, and seas where the storm-petrels cry, Dropped mute around the globe, these halyard singers lie.
Short-lived the clippers for racing-cups that run, And speeds in life"s career many a lavish mother"s-son.
But thou, manly king o" the old _Splendid"s_ crew, The ribbons o" thy hat still a-fluttering, should fly-- A challenge, and forever, nor the bravery should rue.
Only in a tussle for the starry flag high, When "tis piety to do, and privilege to die.
Then, only then, would heaven think to lop Such a cedar as the captain o" the _Splendid"s_ main-top: A belted sea-gentleman; a gallant, off-hand Mercutio indifferent in life"s gay command.
Magnanimous in humor; when the splintering shot fell, "Tooth-picks a-plenty, lads; thank "em with a sh.e.l.l!"
Sang Larry o" the _Cannakin,_ smuggler o" the wine, At mess between guns, lad in jovial recline: "In Limbo our Jack he would chirrup up a cheer, The martinet there find a chaffing mutineer; From a thousand fathoms down under hatches o" your Hades, He"d ascend in love-ditty, kissing fingers to your ladies!"
Never relishing the knave, though allowing for the menial, Nor overmuch the king, Jack, nor prodigally genial.
Ash.o.r.e on liberty he flashed in escapade, Vaulting over life in its levelness of grade, Like the dolphin off Africa in rainbow a-sweeping-- Arch iridescent shot from seas languid sleeping.
Larking with thy life, if a joy but a toy, Heroic in thy levity wert thou, Jack Roy.
Sea Pieces
THE HAGLETS
By chapel bare, with walls sea-beat The lichened urns in wilds are lost About a carved memorial stone That shows, decayed and coral-mossed, A form rec.u.mbent, swords at feet, Trophies at head, and kelp for a winding-sheet.
I invoke thy ghost, neglected fane, Washed by the waters" long lament; I adjure the rec.u.mbent effigy To tell the cenotaph"s intent-- Reveal why f.a.gotted swords are at feet, Why trophies appear and weeds are the winding-sheet.
By open ports the Admiral sits, And shares repose with guns that tell Of power that smote the arm"d Plate Fleet Whose sinking flag-ship"s colors fell; But over the Admiral floats in light His squadron"s flag, the red-cross Flag of the White.
The eddying waters whirl astern, The prow, a seedsman, sows the spray; With bellying sails and buckling spars The black hull leaves a Milky Way; Her timbers thrill, her batteries roll, She revelling speeds exulting with pennon at pole,
But ah, for standards captive trailed For all their scutcheoned castles" pride-- Castilian towers that dominate Spain, Naples, and either Ind beside; Those haughty towers, armorial ones, Rue the salute from the Admiral"s dens of guns.