A purposed light; it shows our fleet; Yet a little late in its searching ray, So far and strong, that in phantom cheat Lank on the deck our shadows lay; The shining flag-ship stings their guns to furious play.
How dread to mark her near the glare And glade of death the beacon throws Athwart the racing waters there; One by one each plainer grows, Then speeds a blazoned target to our gladdened foes.
The impartial cresset lights as well The fixed forts to the boats that run; And, plunged from the ports, their answers swell Back to each fortress dun: Ponderous words speaks every monster gun.
Fearless they flash through gates of flame, The salamanders hard to hit, Though vivid shows each bulky frame; And never the batteries intermit, Nor the boat’s huge guns; they fire and flit.
Anon a lull. The beacon dies. “Are they out of that strait accurst?” But other flames now dawning rise, Not mellowly brilliant like the first, But rolled in smoke, whose whitish volumes burst.
A baleful brand, a hurrying torch Whereby anew the boats are seen— A burning transport all alurch! Breathless we gaze; yet still we glean Glimpses of beauty as we eager lean.
The effulgence takes an amber glow Which bathes the hill-side villas far; Affrighted ladies mark the show Painting the pale magnolia— The fair, false, Circe light of cruel War.
The barge drifts doomed, a plague-struck one, Shoreward in yawls the sailors fly. But the gauntlet now is nearly run, The spleenful forts by fits reply, And the burning boat dies down in morning’s sky.
All out of range. Adieu, Messieurs! Jeers, as it speeds, our parting gun. So burst we through their barriers And menaces every one; So Porter proves himself a brave man’s son.