Herman Melville

O the precipice Titanic Of the congregated Fall, And the angle oceanic

(July, 1864.) Arms reversed and banners craped - Muffled drums;

[19] Head-board and foot-board duly placed - Grassed in the mound between;

How often in the years that close, When truce had stilled the sieging gun, The soldiers, mounting on their works,

For Soldiers lost in Ocean Transports When, after storms that woodlands rue, To valleys comes atoning dawn,

Plain be the phrase, yet apt the verse, More ponderous than nimble; For since grimed War here laid aside

I Where the wings of a sunny Dome expand I saw a Banner in gladsome air--

When Sunday tidings from the front Made pale the priest and people, And heavily the blessing went,

On one of the Battle-fields of the Wilderness Silence and solitude may hint (Whose home is in yon piney wood)

(1860-1.) I O the clammy cold November,

In placid hours well-pleased we dream Of many a brave unbodied scheme. But form to lend, pulsed life create,

Destruction of the Ram Albermarle by the Torpedo-Launch. (October, 1864.) Palely intent, he urged his keel

Commemorative of the Dissolution of armies at the Peace May, 1865 What power disbands the Northern Lights

A Reverie October, 1861 One noonday, at my window in the town,

A View from Oxford Cloisters. (January, 1863.) With Tewksbury and Barnet heath

Sunning ourselves in October on a day Balmy as spring, though the year was in decay, I lading my pipe, she stirring her tea,

(November, 1863.) A kindling impulse seized the host Inspired by heaven's elastic air;[10]

November, 1863 A kindling impulse seized the host Inspired by heaven's elastic air;

Sailors there are of the gentlest breed, Yet strong, like every goodly thing; The discipline of arms refines,

From "The Saya-y-Manto." While now the Pole Star sinks from sight The Southern Cross it climbs the sky;

Stay, Death, Not mine the Christus-wand Wherewith to charge thee and command: I plead. Most gently hold the hand

We drop our dead in the sea, The bottomless, bottomless sea; Each bubble a hollow sigh,

(February, 1862.) The bitter cup Of that hard countermand

(November, 1861.) In time and measure perfect moves All Art whose aim is sure;

If Luther's day expand to Darwin's year, Shall that exclude the hope--foreclose the fear? Unmoved by all the claims our times avow,

Look, the raft, a signal flying, Thin--a shred; None upon the lashed spars lying,

An idealized Portrait, by E. Vedder, in the Spring Exhibition of the National Academy, 1865 The sufferance of her race is shown, And retrospect of life,

The Ancient of Days forever is young, Forever the scheme of Nature thrives; I know a wind in purpose strong--

The Check. (July, 1863.) O pride of the days in prime of the months

We rovers bold, To the land of Gold, Over the bowling billows are gliding:

I After long wars when comes release Not olive wands proclaiming peace

Listless he eyes the palisades And sentries in the glare; 'Tis barren as a pelican-beach

(March, 1862.) Your honest heart of duty, Worden, So helped you that in fame you dwell;

For Graves at Pea Ridge, Arkansas Let none misgive we died amiss When here we strove in furious fight:

Let none misgive we died amiss When here we strove in furious fight: Furious it was; nathless was this

To them who crossed the flood And climbed the hill, with eyes Upon the heavenly flag intent,

Ha, ha, gods and kings; fill high, one and all; Drink, drink! shout and drink! mad respond to the call! Fill fast, and fill full; 'gainst the goblet ne'er sin;

Kept up by relays of generations young Never dies at halyards the blithe chorus sung; While in sands, sounds, and seas where the storm-petrels cry,

Since as in night's deck-watch ye show, Why, lads, so silent here to me, Your watchmate of times long ago?

The Return of the Sire de Nesle. A.D. 16 My towers at last! These rovings end,

[24] (April, 1866.) Hard pressed by numbers in his strait,

Fear me, virgin whosoever Taking pride from love exempt, Fear me, slighted. Never, never

Though fast youth's glorious fable flies, View not the world with worldling's eyes; Nor turn with weather of the time.

(November, 1863.) Who inhabiteth the Mountain That it shines in lurid light,

(August, 1861.) Some hearts there are of deeper sort, Prophetic, sad,

"Sharp words we had before the fight; But - now the fight is done - Look, here's my hand," said the Victor bold,

July, 1862 Ye elms that wave on Malvern Hill In prime of morn and May,

Far off in the sea is Marlena, A land of shades and streams, A land of many delights,

(1860.) When ocean-clouds over inland hills Sweep storming in late autumn brown,

To have known him, to have loved him After loneness long; And then to be estranged in life,

Aloof they crown the foreland lone, From aloft they loftier rise-- Fair columns, in the aureole rolled

Of The Young Master of a Wrecked California Clipper Come out of the Golden Gate, Go round the Horn with streamers,

They said that Fame her clarion dropped Because great deeds were done no more - That even Duty knew no shining ends,

Beauty and youth, with manners sweet, and friends-- Gold, yet a mind not unenriched had he Whom here low violets veil from eyes.

Ay, man is manly. Here you see The warrior-carriage of the head, And brave dilation of the frame;

Happy are they and charmed in life Who through long wars arrive unscarred At peace. To such the wreath be given,

Youth is the time when hearts are large, And stirring wars Appeal to the spirit which appeals in turn

[21] No trophy this - a Stone unhewn, And stands where here the field immures

The men who here in harness died Fell not in vain, though in defeat. They by their end well fortified

Afar they fell. It was the zone Of fig and orange, cane and lime (A land how all unlike their own,

I Though the Clerk of the Weather insist, And lay down the weather-law,

Care is all stuff:-- Puff! Puff! To puff is enough:--

These flags of armies overthrown - Flags fallen beneath the sovereign one In end foredoomed which closes war;

A plea against the vindictive cry raised by civilians shortly after the surrender at Appomattox The color-bearers facing death White in the whirling sulphurous wreath,

(April, 1863.) A moonless night - a friendly one; A haze dimmed the shadowy shore

Wandering late by morning seas When my heart with pain was low-- Hate the censor pelted me--

October, 1864 Shoe the steed with silver That bore him to the fray,

(April, 1862.) Skimming lightly, wheeling still, The swallows fly low

Departed the pride, and the glory of Mardi: The vaunt of her isles sleeps deep in the sea, That rolls o'er his corse with a hush,

Mortally wounded at Chancellorsville May, 1863 The Man who fiercest charged in fight,

(Ascribed to a Virginian.) One man we claim of wrought renown Which not the North shall care to slur;

At The Surf Inn List the harp in window wailing Stirred by fitful gales from sea:

While faith forecasts millennial years Spite Europe's embattled lines, Back to the Past one glance be cast--

The Parthenon uplifted on its rock first challenging the view on the approach to Athens. Abrupt the supernatural Cross, Vivid in startled air,

(A Retrospect.) Convulsions came; and, where the field Long slept in pastoral green,

(1683-64.) I Like snows the camps on southern hills

(August, 1864.) O mystery of noble hearts, To whom mysterious seas have been

(April, 1862.) When Israel camped by Migdol hoar, Down at her feet her shawm she threw,

In bed I muse on Tenier's boors, Embrowned and beery losels all; A wakeful brain

A Dream I SAW a ship of martial build (Her standards set, her brave apparel on)

He rides at their head; A crutch by his saddle just slants in view, One slung arm is in splints, you see,

A Picture by S.R. Gifford, and owned by E.B. Included in the N.A. Exhibition, April, 1865. All feeling hearts must feel for him

[1] (1860-1.) On starry heights

(March, 1862.) Some names there are of telling sound, Whose voweled syllables free

[12] Aloft he guards the starry folds Who is the brother of the star;

"Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him." Shall hearts that beat no base retreat In youth's magnanimous years--

From "Rammon." Through storms you reach them and from storms are free. Afar descried, the foremost drear in hue,

The tidings received in the Northern Metropolis. (April, 1865.) What mean these peals from every tower,

The Charles-and-Emma seaward sped, (Named from the carven pair at prow,) He so smart, and a curly head,

Under the Disaster of the Second Manassas They take no shame for dark defeat While prizing yet each victory won,

[14] Sherman's advance through the Carolinas. (February, 1865.)

Strenuous need that head-wind be From purposed voyage that drives at last The ship, sharp-braced and dogged still,

By chapel bare, with walls sea-beat The lichened urns in wilds are lost About a carved memorial stone

July, 1863 A Night Piece No sleep. The sultriness pervades the air

Hail! voyagers, hail! Whence e'er ye come, where'er ye rove, No calmer strand,

About the Shark, phlegmatical one, Pale sot of the Maldive sea, The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,

Yon black man-of-war-hawk that wheels in the light O'er the black ship's white sky-s'l, sunned cloud to the sight, Have we low-flyers wings to ascend to his height?

Ending in the First Manassas July, 1861 Did all the lets and bars appear

(December, 1864.) Not Kenesaw high-arching, Nor Allatoona's glen -

He toned the sprightly beam of morning With twilight meek of tender eve, Brightness interfused with softness,

Indicative of the passion of the people on the 15th of April, 1865 Goon Friday was the day Of the prodigy and crime,

The grass shall never forget this grave. When homeward footing it in the sun After the weary ride by rail,

[17] Suggested by the Two Days' Review at Washington (May, 1865.)

Persian, you rise Aflame from climes of sacrifice Where adulators sue,

With banners furled and clarions mute, An army passes in the night; And beaming spears and helms salute

Hanging from the beam, Slowly swaying (such the law), Gaunt the shadow on your green,

In shards the sylvan vases lie, Their links of dance undone, And brambles wither by thy brim,

June, 1865 Armies he's seen--the herds of war, But never such swarms of men

Over the hearth - my father's seat - Repose, to patriot-memory dear, Thou tried companion, whom at last I greet

The cavalry-camp lies on the slope Of what was late a vernal hill, But now like a pavement bare -

An Old Sailor's Lament December, 1861 I have a feeling for those ships,

(April, 1865.) As billows upon billows roll, On victory victory breaks;

There is a coal-black Angel With a thick Afric lip, And he dwells (like the hunted and harried)

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,

All dripping in tangles green, Cast up by a lonely sea If purer for that, O Weed,

[5] (1862.) When tempest winnowed grain from bran;

Where is the world we roved, Ned Bunn? Hollows thereof lay rich in shade By voyagers old inviolate thrown

Lonesome on earth's loneliest deep, Sailor! who dost thy vigil keep-- Off the Cape of Storms dost musing sweep

During a tempest encountered homeward-bound from the Mediterranean, a grizzled petty-officer, one of the two captains of the forecastle, dying at night in his hammock, swung in the sick-bay under the tiered gun-decks of the British Dreadnaught, 98, wandering in his mind, though with glimpses of sanity, and starting up at whiles, sings by snatches his good-bye and last injunctions to two messmates, his watchers, one of whom fans the fevered tar with the flap of his old sou'wester. Some names and phrases, with here and there a line, or part of one; these, in his aberration, wrested into incoherency from their original connection and import, he voluntarily derives, as he does the measure, from a famous old sea-ditty, whose cadences, long rife, and now humming in the collapsing brain, attune the last flutterings of distempered thought. Farewell and adieu to you noble hearties,-- Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain,

We fish, we fish, we merrily swim, We care not for friend nor for foe. Our fins are stout,