Down upon us heavily runs, Silent and sullen, the floating fort; Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, And leaps the terrible death, With fiery breath, From each open port. We are not idle, but send her straight As hail rebounds from a roof of slate, From each iron scale Of the monster's hide. "Strike your flag!" the rebel cries, In his arrogant old plantation strain. "Never!" our gallant Morris replies; "It is better to sink than to yield!" And the whole air pealed With the cheers of our men. Then, like a kraken huge and black, She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp! Down went the Cumberland all a wrack, With a sudden shudder of death, And the cannon's breath For her dying gasp. Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, Still floated our flag at the mainmast-head. Lord, how beautiful was thy day! Every waft of the air Was a whisper of prayer, Ho brave hearts that went down in the seas! Ye are at peace in the troubled stream, And without a seam! SNOW-FLAKES. OUT of the bosom of the Air, Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare Over the harvest-fields forsaken, Silent, and soft, and slow Descends the snow. Even as our cloudy fancies take Suddenly shape in some divine expression, Even as the troubled heart doth make In the white countenance confession, The troubled sky reveals The grief it feels. This is the poem of the air, Slowly in silent syllables recorded; This is the secret of despair, Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, Now whispered and revealed To wood and field. A DAY OF SUNSHINE. O GIFT of God! O perfect day: Whereon shall no man work, but play; Not to be doing, but to be! Through every fibre of my brain, Through every nerve, through every vein, I feel the electric thrill, the touch I hear the wind among the trees |