With savage haste, in the dark,
(Our steerage hadn't a spark,)
Into boot and hose they blundered—
From for'ard came a strange, low roar,
The dull and smothered racket
Of lower rig and jacket
Hurried on, by the hundred,
How the berth deck buzzed and swore!
The third of minutes ten,
And half a thousand men,
From the dream-gulf, dead and deep,
Of the seamen's measured sleep,
In the taking of a lunar,
In the serving of a ration,
Every man at his station!—
Three and a quarter, or sooner!
Never a skulk to be seen—
From the look-out aloft to the gunner
Lurking in his black magazine.
There they stand, still as death,
And, (a trifle out of breath,
It may be,) we of the Staff,
All on the poop, to a minute,
Wonder if there's anything in it—
Doubting if to growl or laugh.
But, somehow, every hand
Feels for hilt and brand,
Tries if buckle and frog be tight,—
So, in the chilly breeze, we stand,
Peering through the dimness of the night—
The men by twos and ones,
Grim and silent at the guns,
Ready, if a Foe heave in sight!
But, as we look aloft,
There, all white and soft,
Floated on the fleecy clouds,
(Stray flocks in heaven's blue croft)—
How they shone, the eternal stars,
'Mid the black masts and spars
And the great maze of lifts and shrouds!
Henry Howard Brownell.
(Flag Ship "Hartford," May, 1864.)
Battle-Hymn of the Republic
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored,
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps,
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel;
"As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal:
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."