Gaines growled low on our left, Morgan roared on our right; Before us, gloomy and fell, With breath like the fume of hell, Lay the dragon of iron shell, Driven at last to the fight!
Ha, old ship! do they thrill, The brave two hundred scars You got in the River-Wars? That were leeched with clamorous skill, (Surgery savage and hard,) Splinted with bolt and beam, Probed in scarfing and seam, Rudely linted and tarred With oakum and boiling pitch, And sutured with splice and hitch, At the Brooklyn Navy-Yard!
Our lofty spars were down, To bide the battle’s frown (Wont of old renown)— But every ship was drest In her bravest and her best, As if for a July day; Sixty flags and three, As we floated up the bay— At every peak and mast-head flew The brave Red, White, and Blue,— We were eighteen ships that day.
With hawsers strong and taut, The weaker lashed to port, On we sailed two by two— That if either a bolt should feel Crash through caldron or wheel, Fin of bronze, or sinew of steel, Her mate might bear her through.
Forging boldly ahead, The great Flag-Ship led, Grandest of sights! On her lofty mizzen flew Our leader’s dauntless Blue, That had waved o’er twenty fights So we went with the first of the tide, Slowly, ’mid the roar Of the rebel guns ashore And the thunder of each full broadside.
Ah, how poor the prate Of statute and state We once held these fellows! Here on the flood’s pale-green, Hark how he bellows, Each bluff old Sea-Lawyer! Talk to them, Dahlgren, Parrott, and Sawyer!
On, in the whirling shade Of the cannon’s sulphury breath, We drew to the Line of Death That our devilish Foe had laid,— Meshed in a horrible net, And baited villainous well, Right in our path were set Three hundred traps of hell!
And there, O sight forlorn! There, while the cannon Hurtled and thundered,— (Ah, what ill raven Flapped o’er the ship that morn!)— Caught by the under-death, In the drawing of a breath Down went dauntless Craven, He and his hundred!
A moment we saw her turret, A little heel she gave, And a thin white spray went o’er her, Like the crest of a breaking wave;— In that great iron coffin, The channel for their grave, The fort their monument, (Seen afar in the offing), Ten fathom deep lie Craven And the bravest of our brave.
Then in that deadly track A little the ships held back, Closing up in their stations;— There are minutes that fix the fate Of battles and of nations, (Christening the generations,) When valor were all too late, If a moment’s doubt be harbored;— From the main-top, bold and brief, Came the word of our grand old chief: “Go on!”—’twas all he said,— Oar helm was put to starboard, And the Hartford passed ahead.