And, hark! their piercing shrieks of wo!
Haste, haste and save the sinking foe:
Haste, e'er their wreck to bottom go,
Brave conquerors.
Now, honor to the warriors brave,
Whose field of fame, the mountain wave,
Their corses bear to ocean's cave,
Their sepulchre.
Their country's pæans swell their praise;
And whilst the warm tear, gushing, strays,
Full many a bard shall chant his lays,
Their requiem.
The Wasp herself never returned to port. On September 21 she captured the Atalanta and put a crew on board to take the prize to America. They parted company, and the Wasp was never seen again.
THE LOST WAR-SLOOP
(THE WASP, 1814)
O the pride of Portsmouth water,
Toast of every brimming beaker,—
Eighteen hundred and fourteen on land and sea,—
Was the Wasp, the gallant war-sloop,
Built of oaks Kearsarge had guarded,
Pines of Maine to lift her colors high and free!
Every timber scorning cowards;
Every port alert for foemen
From the masthead seen on weather-side or lee;—
With eleven guns to starboard,
And eleven guns to larboard,
All for glory on a morn of May sailed she.
British ships were in the offing;
Swift and light she sped between them,—
Well her daring crew knew shoal and wind and tide;
They had come from Portsmouth river,
Sea-girt Marblehead and Salem,
Bays and islands where the fisher-folk abide;
Come for love of home and country,
Come with wrongs that cried for vengeance,—
Every man among them brave and true and tried.
"Hearts of oak" are British seamen?
Hearts of fire were these, their kindred,
Flaming till the haughty foe should be descried!
From the mountains, from the prairies,
Blew the west winds glad to waft her;—
Ah, what goodly ships before her guns went down!
Ships with wealth of London laden,
Ships with treasures of the Indies,
Till her name brought fear to British wharf and town;
Till the war-sloops Reindeer, Avon,
To her valor struck their colors,
Making coast and ocean ring with her renown;
While her captain cried, exultant,
"Britain, to the bold Republic,
Of the empire of the seas shall yield the crown!"
Oh, the woful, woful ending
Of the pride of Portsmouth water!
Never more to harbor nor to shore came she!
Springs returned but brought no tidings;
Mothers, maidens, broken-hearted,
Wept the gallant lads that sailed away in glee.
Did the bolts of heaven blast her?
Did the hurricanes o'erwhelm her
With her starry banner and her tall masts three?
Was a pirate-fleet her captor?
Did she drift to polar oceans?
Who shall tell the awful secret of the sea!