Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  The rest of that gun’s crew,

  (The captain of the gun was cut in two);

  Then splintering and ripping went—

  Nothing could be its continent.

  In the narrow stream the Louisville,

  Unhelmed, grew lawless; swung around,

  And would have thumped and drifted, till

  All the fleet was driven aground,

  But for the timely order to retire.

  Some damage from our fire, ’tis thought,

  Was done the water-batteries of the Fort.

  Little else took place that day,

  Except the field artillery in line

  Would now and then—for love, they say—

  Exchange a valentine.

  The old sharpshooting going on.

  Some plan afoot as yet unknown;

  So Friday closed round Donelson.

  LATER.

  Great suffering through the night—

  A stinging one. Our heedless boys

  Were nipped like blossoms. Some dozen

  Hapless wounded men were frozen.

  During day being struck down out of sight,

  And help-cries drowned in roaring noise,

  They were left just where the skirmish shifted—

  Left in dense underbrush snow-drifted.

  Some, seeking to crawl in crippled plight,

  So stiffened—perished.

  Yet in spite

  Of pangs for these, no heart is lost.

  Hungry, and clothing stiff with frost,

  Our men declare a nearing sun

  Shall see the fall of Donelson.

  And this they say, yet not disown

  The dark redoubts round Donelson,

  And ice-glazed corpses, each a stone—

  A sacrifice to Donelson;

  They swear it, and swerve not, gazing on

  A flag, deemed black, flying from Donelson.

  Some of the wounded in the wood

  Were cared for by the foe last night,

  Though he could do them little needed good,

  Himself being all in shivering plight.

  The rebel is wrong, but human yet;

  He’s got a heart, and thrusts a bayonet.

  He gives us battle with wondrous will—

  This bluff’s a perverted Bunker Hill.

  The stillness stealing through the throng

  The silent thought and dismal fear revealed;

  They turned and went,

  Musing on right and wrong

  And mysteries dimly sealed—

  Breasting the storm in daring discontent;

  The storm, whose black flag showed in heaven,

  As if to say no quarter there was given

  To wounded men in wood,

  Or true hearts yearning for the good—

  All fatherless seemed the human soul.

  But next day brought a bitterer bowl—

  On the bulletin-board this stood:

  Saturday morning at 3 A.M.

  A stir within the Fort betrayed

  That the rebels were getting under arms;

  Some plot these early birds had laid.

  But a lancing sleet cut him who stared

  Into the storm. After some vague alarms,

  Which left our lads unscared,

  Out sallied the enemy at dim of dawn,

  With cavalry and artillery, and went

  In fury at our environment.

  Under cover of shot and shell

  Three columns of infantry rolled on,

  Vomited out of Donelson—

  Rolled down the slopes like rivers of hell,

  Surged at our line, and swelled and poured

  Like breaking surf. But unsubmerged

  Our men stood up, except where roared

  The enemy through one gap. We urged

  Our all of manhood to the stress,

  But still showed shattered in our desperateness.

  Back set the tide,

  But soon afresh rolled in;

  And so it swayed from side to side—

  Far batteries joining in the din,

  Though sharing in another fray—

  Till all became an Indian fight,

  Intricate, dusky, stretching far away,

  Yet not without spontaneous plan

  However tangled showed the plight:

  Duels all over ’tween man and man,

  Duels on cliff-side, and down in ravine,

  Duels at long range, and bone to bone;

  Duels every where flitting and half unseen.

  Only by courage good as their own,

  And strength outlasting theirs,

  Did our boys at last drive the rebels off.

  Yet they went not back to their distant lairs

  In strong-hold, but loud in scoff

  Maintained themselves on conquered ground—

  Uplands; built works, or stalked around.

  Our right wing bore this onset. Noon

  Brought calm to Donelson.

  The reader ceased; the storm beat hard;

  ’Twas day, but the office-gas was lit;

  Nature retained her sulking-fit,

  In her hand the shard.

  Flitting faces took the hue

  Of that washed bulletin-board in view,

  And seemed to bear the public grief

  As private, and uncertain of relief;

  Yea, many an earnest heart was won,

  As broodingly he plodded on,

  To find in himself some bitter thing,

  Some hardness in his lot as harrowing

  As Donelson.

  That night the board stood barren there,

  Oft eyed by wistful people passing,

  Who nothing saw but the rain-beads chasing

  Each other down the wafered square,

  As down some storm-beat grave-yard stone.

  But next day showed—

  MORE NEWS LAST NIGHT.

  STORY OF SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

  VICISSITUDES OF THE WAR.

  The damaged gun-boats can’t wage fight

  For days; so says the Commodore.

  Thus no diversion can be had.

  Under a sunless sky of lead

  Our grim-faced boys in blackened plight

  Gaze toward the ground they held before,

  And then on Grant. He marks their mood,

  And hails it, and will turn the same to good.

  Spite all that they have undergone,

  Their desperate hearts are set upon

  This winter fort, this stubborn fort,

  This castle of the last resort,

  This Donelson.

  1 P.M.

  An order given

  Requires withdrawal from the front

  Of regiments that bore the brunt

  Of morning’s fray. Their ranks all riven

  Are being replaced by fresh, strong men.

  Great vigilance in the foeman’s Den;

  He snuffs the stormers. Need it is

  That for that fell assault of his,

  That rout inflicted, and self-scorn—

  Immoderate in noble natures, torn

  By sense of being through slackness overborne—

  The rebel be given a quick return:

  The kindest face looks now half stern.

  Balked of their prey in airs that freeze,

  Some fierce ones glare like savages.

  And yet, and yet, strange moments are—

  Well—blood, and tears, and anguished War!

  The morning’s ba
ttle-ground is seen

  In lifted glades, like meadows rare;

  The blood-drops on the snow-crust there

  Like clover in the white-weed show—

  Flushed fields of death, that call again—

  Call to our men, and not in vain,

  For that way must the stormers go.

  3 P.M.

  The work begins.

  Light drifts of men thrown forward, fade

  In skirmish-line along the slope,

  Where some dislodgments must be made

  Ere the stormer with the strong-hold cope.

  Lew Wallace, moving to retake

  The heights late lost—

  (Herewith a break.

  Storms at the West derange the wires.

  Doubtless, ere morning, we shall hear

  The end; we look for news to cheer—

  Let Hope fan all her fires.)

  Next day in large bold hand was seen

  The closing bulletin:

  VICTORY!

  Our troops have retrieved the day

  By one grand surge along the line;

  The spirit that urged them was divine.

  The first works flooded, naught could stay

  The stormers: on! still on!

  Bayonets for Donelson!

  Over the ground that morning lost

  Rolled the blue billows, tempest-tossed,

  Following a hat on the point of a sword.

  Spite shell and round-shot, grape and canister,

  Up they climbed without rail or banister—

  Up the steep hill-sides long and broad,

  Driving the rebel deep within his works.

  ’Tis nightfall; not an enemy lurks

  In sight. The chafing men

  Fret for more fight:

  “To-night, to-night let us take the Den!”

  But night is treacherous, Grant is wary;

  Of brave blood be a little chary.

  Patience! the Fort is good as won;

  To-morrow, and into Donelson.

  LATER AND LAST.

  THE FORT IS OURS.

  A flag came out at early morn

  Bringing surrender. From their towers

  Floats out the banner late their scorn.

  In Dover, hut and house are full

  Of rebels dead or dying.

  The National flag is flying

  From the crammed court-house pinnacle.

  Great boat-loads of our wounded go

  To-day to Nashville. The sleet-winds blow;

  But all is right: the fight is won,

  The winter-fight for Donelson.

  Hurrah!

  The spell of old defeat is broke,

  The habit of victory begun;

  Grant strikes the war’s first sounding stroke

  At Donelson.

  For lists of killed and wounded, see

  The morrow’s dispatch: to-day ’tis victory.

  The man who read this to the crowd

  Shouted as the end he gained;

  And though the unflagging tempest rained,

  They answered him aloud.

  And hand grasped hand, and glances met

  In happy triumph; eyes grew wet.

  O, to the punches brewed that night

  Went little water. Windows bright

  Beamed rosy on the sleet without,

  And from the cross street came the frequent shout;

  While some in prayer, as these in glee,

  Blessed heaven for the winter-victory.

  But others were who wakeful laid

  In midnight beds, and early rose,

  And, feverish in the foggy snows,

  Snatched the damp paper—wife and maid.

  The death-list like a river flows

  Down the pale sheet,

  And there the whelming waters meet.

  Ah God! may Time with happy haste

  Bring wail and triumph to a waste,

  And war be done;

  The battle flag-staff fall athwart

  The curs’d ravine, and wither; naught

  Be left of trench or gun;

  The bastion, let it ebb away,

  Washed with the river bed; and Day

  In vain seek Donelson.

  The Cumberland

  (March, 1862)

  SOME names there are of telling sound,

  Whose voweled syllables free

  Are pledge that they shall ever live renowned;

  Such seems to be

  A Frigate’s name (by present glory spanned)—

  The Cumberland.

  Sounding name as ere was sung,

  Flowing, rolling on the tongue—

  Cumberland! Cumberland!

  She warred and sunk. There’s no denying

  That she was ended—quelled;

  And yet her flag above her fate is flying,

  As when it swelled

  Unswallowed by the swallowing sea: so grand—

  The Cumberland.

  Goodly name as ere was sung,

  Roundly rolling on the tongue—

  Cumberland! Cumberland!

  What need to tell how she was fought—

  The sinking flaming gun—

  The gunner leaping out the port—

  Washed back, undone!

  Her dead unconquerably manned

  The Cumberland.

  Noble name as ere was sung,

  Slowly roll it on the tongue—

  Cumberland! Cumberland!

  Long as hearts shall share the flame

  Which burned in that brave crew,

  Her fame shall live—outlive the victor’s name;

  For this is due.

  Your flag and flag-staff shall in story stand—

  Cumberland!

  Sounding name as ere was sung,

  Long they’ll roll it on the tongue—

  Cumberland! Cumberland!

  In the Turret

  (March, 1862)

  YOUR honest heart of duty, Worden,

  So helped you that in fame you dwell;

  You bore the first iron battle’s burden

  Sealed as in a diving-bell.

  Alcides, groping into haunted hell

  To bring forth King Admetus’ bride,

  Braved naught more vaguely direful and untried.

  What poet shall uplift his charm,

  Bold Sailor, to your height of daring,

  And interblend therewith the calm,

  And build a goodly style upon your bearing.

  Escaped the gale of outer ocean—

  Cribbed in a craft which like a log

  Was washed by every billow’s motion—

  By night you heard of Og

  The huge; nor felt your courage clog

  At tokens of his onset grim:

  You marked the sunk ship’s flag-staff slim,

  Lit by her burning sister’s heart;

  You marked, and mused: “Day brings the trial:

  Then be it proved if I have part

  With men whose manhood never took denial.”

  A prayer went up—a champion’s. Morning

  Beheld you in the Turret walled

  By adamant, where a spirit forewarning

  And all-deriding called:

  “Man, darest thou—desperate, unappalled—

  Be first to lock thee in the armored tower?

  I have thee now; and what the battle-hour

  To me shall bring—heed well—thou’lt share;

 
This plot-work, planned to be the foeman’s terror,

  To thee may prove a goblin-snare;

  Its very strength and cunning—monstrous error!”

  “Stand up, my heart; be strong; what matter

  If here thou seest thy welded tomb?

  And let huge Og with thunders batter—

  Duty be still my doom,

  Though drowning come in liquid gloom;

  First duty, duty next, and duty last;

  Ay, Turret, rivet me here to duty fast!”—

  So nerved, you fought, wisely and well;

  And live, twice live in life and story;

  But over your Monitor dirges swell,

  In wind and wave that keep the rites of glory.

  The Temeraire c

  (Supposed to have been suggested to an Englishman of

  the old order by the fight of the Monitor and Merrimac)

  THE gloomy hulls, in armor grim,

  Like clouds o’er moors have met,

  And prove that oak, and iron, and man

  Are tough in fibre yet.

  But Splendors wane. The sea-fight yields

  No front of old display;

  The garniture, emblazonment,

  And heraldry all decay.

  Towering afar in parting light,

  The fleets like Albion’s forelands shine—

  The full-sailed fleets, the shrouded show

  Of Ships-of-the-Line.

  The fighting Temeraire,

  Built of a thousand trees,

  Lunging out her lightnings,

  And beetling o’er the seas—

  O Ship, how brave and fair,

  That fought so oft and well,

  On open decks you manned the gun

  Armorial.d

  What cheerings did you share,

  Impulsive in the van,

  When down upon leagued France and Spain

  We English ran—

  The freshet at your bowsprit

  Like the foam upon the can.

  Bickering, your colors

  Licked up the Spanish air,

  You flapped with flames of battle-flags—

  Your challenge, Temeraire!

  The rear ones of our fleet

  They yearned to share your place,