"O go with me, the darkness nears,

The first pale stars begin to gleam." The maid replied with bursting tears,

"It is the stream! it is the stream!"

ON THE DEFEAT OF A GREAT MAN

FALLEN? How fallen? States and empires fall;

O'er towers and rock-built walls, And perished nations, floods to tempests call

With hollow sound along the sea of time: The great man never falls.

He lives, he towers aloft, he stands sublime:

They fall who give him not
The honor here that suits his future name,
They die and are forgot.

O Giant loud and blind! the great man's fame

Is his own shadow, and not cast by thee,
A shadow that shall grow

As down the heaven of time the sun de

How the guns, as with cheer and shout Our tackle-men hurled them out, Brought up on the water-ways!

First, as we fired at their flash, 'Twas lightning and black eclipse, With a bellowing roll and crash; either bow,

But soon, upon

What with forts, and fire-rafts, and ships,

(The whole fleet was hard at it now,
All pounding away!) and Porter
Still thundering with shell and mortar,
'T was the mighty sound and form
Of an equatorial storm!

(Such you see in the Far South,
After long heat and drouth,

As day draws nigh to even:
Arching from North to South,
Blinding the tropic sun,

The great black bow comes on,
Till the thunder-veil is riven,
When all is crash and levin,
And the cannonade of heaven
Rolls down the Amazon!)

But, as we worked along higher,

Just where the river enlarges, Down came a pyramid of fire

It was one of your long coal barges (We had often had the like before). 'T was coming down on us to larboard, Well in with the eastern shore, And our pilot, to let it pass round, (You may guess we never stopped to sound)

Giving us a rank sheer to starboard,

Ran the Flag hard and fast aground!

'T was nigh abreast of the Upper Fort,
And straightway a rascal Ram
(She was shaped like the devil's dam)
Puffed away for us with a snort,

And shoved it with spiteful strength
Right alongside of us, to port.

(It was all of our ship's length,
A huge crackling Cradle of the Pit,
Pitch-pine knots to the brim,
Belching flame red and grim)
What a roar came up from it!

Well, for a little it looked bad;

But these things are, somehow, shorter

O'er the haze and the cannon-smoke,
That ever such morning dulls,
There were thirteen traitor hulls
On fire and sinking !

THE BURIAL OF THE DANE

BLUE gulf all around us,
Blue sky overhead —
Muster all on the quarter,
We must bury the dead!

It is but a Danish sailor,
Rugged of front and form;

A common son of the forecastle,

Grizzled with sun and storm.

His name, and the strand he hailed from We know, and there's nothing more! But perhaps his mother is waiting

In the lonely Island of Fohr.

Still, as he lay there dying,

Reason drifting awreck,

""Tis my watch," he would mutter, "I must go upon deck!"

Aye, on deck, by the foremast!

But watch and lookout are done;
The Union Jack laid o'er him,
How quiet he lies in the sun!

Slow the ponderous engine,
Stay the hurrying shaft;
Let the roll of the ocean
Cradle our giant craft;
Gather around the grating,
Carry your messmate aft!

Stand in order, and listen

To the holiest page of prayer!
Let every foot be quiet,
Every head be bare
The soft trade-wind is lifting
A hundred locks of hair.

Our captain reads the service,

(A little spray on his cheeks) The grand old words of burial,

And the trust a true heart seeks: "We therefore commit his body

To the deep" - and, as he speaks,