[C]
THE DYING FIREMAN
I am the mashed fireman with breast-bone broken, Tumbling walls buried me in their débris, Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades, I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels, They have cleared the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth.
I lie in the night air in my red shirt, the pervading hush is for my sake, Painless after all I lie, exhausted but not so unhappy, White and beautiful are the faces around me, the heads are bared of their fire-caps, The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.
Whitman.
[CI]
A SEA-FIGHT
Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight? Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars? List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to me.
‘Our foe was no skulk in his ship, I tell you (said he), His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be; Along the lowered eve he came horribly raking us.
We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touched, My captain lashed fast with his own hands.
We had received some eighteen-pound shots under the water, On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead.
Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark, Ten o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and five feet of water reported, The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold to give them a chance for themselves.