“‘Lower the boats!’ was Nelson’s order,”—But the listening boy beside him,
Who had followed all his motions with an eager wide blue eye,
Nursed upon the name of Nelson till he half had deified him,
Here, with childhood’s crude consistence, broke the tale to question “Why?”
For by children facts go streaming in a throng that never pauses,
Noted not, till, of a sudden, thought, a sunbeam, gilds the motes.
All at once the known words quicken, and the child would deal with causes.
Since to kill the French was righteous, why bade Nelson lower the boats?
Quick the man put by the question. “But the Orient, none could save her;
We could see the ships, the ensigns, clear as day-light by the flare;