"If with weight of his right hand, with power, he denieth to deal,
And the smoke clouds, and thunders of guns, and the lightnings
of steel,
Shall the cool silent dews of his grace, in a season of peace,
Not descend on the land, as of old, for a sign, on the fleece?
"Hath he cleft not the rock, to the yield of a stream that is sweet?
Hath he set in the ribs of the lion no honey for meat?
Can he bring not delight to the desert, and buds to the rod?
He will shine, he will visit his vine; he hath sworn, he is God!"
Then I thought of the gate I rode through on the roan that's
long dead,—
I remember the dawn was but pale, and the stars overhead;
Of the babe that is grown to a maid, and of Martha, my wife,
And the spring on the wolds far away, and gave thanks for my life!
THE STORY OF THE "ORIENT"
'T was a pleasant Sunday morning while the spring was in its glory,
English spring of gentle glory; smoking by his cottage door,
Florid-faced, the man-o'-war's-man told his white-head boy the story,
Noble story of Aboukir, told a hundred times before.
"Here, the Theseus—here, the Vanguard;" as he spoke
each name sonorous,—
Minotaur, Defence, Majestic, stanch old comrades of the brine,
That against the ships of Brucys made their broadsides roar
in chorus,—
Ranging daisies on his doorstone, deft he mapped the battle-line.
Mapped the curve of tall three-deckers, deft as might
a man left-handed,
Who had given an arm to England later on at Trafalgar.
While he poured the praise of Nelson to the child with eyes expanded,
Bright athwart his honest forehead blushed the scarlet cutlass-scar.
For he served aboard the Vanguard, saw the Admiral blind and bleeding
Borne below by silent sailors, borne to die as then they deemed.
Every stout heart sick but stubborn, fought the sea-dogs on unheeding,
Guns were cleared and manned and cleared, the battle thundered,
flashed, and screamed.
Till a cry swelled loud and louder,—towered on fire the
Orient stately,
Brucys' flag-ship, she that carried guns a hundred and a score;
Then came groping up the hatchway he they counted dead but lately,
Came the little one-armed Admiral to guide the fight once more.
"'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?"