Now for it, at Robinett!
Muzzle to muzzle we met

(Not a breath of bluster or brag,

Not a lisp for quarter or favor) — Three times, there, by Robinett, With a rush, their feet they set On the logs of our parapet,

And waved their bit of a flag

What could be finer or braver! But our cross-fire stunned them in flank, They melted, rank after rank (O'er them, with terrible poise,

Our Bird did circle and wheel!)
Their whole line began to waver

Now for the bayonet, boys!

On them with the cold steel!

you know how it ended

Ah, well We did for them, there and then, But their pluck throughout was splendid. (As I said before, I could love them!)

They stood to the last, like men

Only a handful of them

Found the way back again. Red as blood, o'er the town, The angry sun went down,

Firing flagstaff and vaneAnd our eagle, as for him, There, all ruffled and grim.

He sat, o'erlooking the slain! Next morning, you'd have wondered

How we had to drive the spade! There, in great trenches and holes (Ah, God rest their poor souls!), We piled some fifteen hundred,

Where that last charge was made!
Sad enough, I must say.

No mother to mourn and search,
No priest to bless or to pray
We buried them where they lay,
Without a rite of the church

But our eagle, all that day,

Stood solemn and still on his perch.

459

THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862
THE flags of war like storm-birds fly,
The charging trumpets blow;
Yet rolls no thunder in the sky,
No earthquake strives below.

And, calm and patient, Nature keeps
Her ancient promise well,

Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps
The battle's breath of hell.

And still she walks in golden hours
Through harvest-happy farms,

And still she wears her fruits and flowers
Like jewels on her arms.

What mean the gladness of the plain,
This joy of eve and morn,

The mirth that shakes the beard of grain
And yellow locks of corn?

Ah! eyes may well be full of tears,
And hearts with hate are hot;
But even-paced come round the years,
And Nature changes not.

She meets with smiles our bitter grief,
With songs our groans of pain;
She mocks with tint of flower and leaf
The war-field's crimson stain.

Still, in the cannon's pause, we hear

Her sweet thanksgiving-psalm;
Too near to God for doubt or fear,
She shares the eternal calm.

She knows the seed lies safe below
The fires that blast and burn;
For all the tears of blood we sow
She waits the rich return.

She sees with clearer eye than ours
The good of suffering born, -
The hearts that blossom like her flowers,
And ripen like her corn.

Oh, give to us, in times like these,
The vision of her eyes;

And make her fields and fruited trees
Our golden prophecies!

Oh, give to us her finer ear!
Above this stormy din,

We too would hear the bells of cheer
Ring peace and freedom in.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

At Newport News lay the United States 50-gun frigate Congress, the 24-gun sloop Cumberland, and the frigates St. Lawrence, Roanoke, and Minnesota. In command of the Cumberland was Lieutenant George Upham Morris, and at noon the Merrimac was seen from the Cumberland's deck advancing to the attack. Shot and shell were poured upon her without effect. She steamed straight on and plunged her ram into the Cumberland's side. Morris fought his ship until she sank under him.

THE ATTACK [March 8, 1862]

IN Hampton Roads, the airs of March were bland,

Peace on the deck and in the fortress sleeping,

Till, in the look-out of the Cumberland,
The sailor, with his well-poised glass in hand,
Descried the iron island downward creep-
ing.

A sudden wonder seized on land and bay, And Tumult, with her train, was there to follow;

For still the stranger kept its seaward way, Looking a great leviathan blowing spray, Seeking with steady course his ocean wallow.

And still it came, and largened on the sight; A floating monster; ugly and gigantic; In shape, a wave, with long and shelving height,

As if a mighty billow, heaved at night,

Should turn to iron in the mid-Atlantic.

Then ship and fortress gazed with anxious

stare,

Until the Cumberland's cannon, silence breaking,

463

Thundered its guardian challenge, "Who

comes there?"

But, like a rock-flung echo in the air,

The shot rebounded, no impression making.

Then roared a broadside; though directed well,

On, like a nightmare, moved the shape defiant;

The tempest of our pounding shot and shell Crumbled to harmless nothing, thickly fell

From off the sounding armor of the giant!

Unchecked, still onward through the storm it broke,

With beak directed at the vessel's centre; Then through the constant cloud of sulphurous smoke

Drove, till it struck the warrior's wall of oak, Making a gateway for the waves to enter.

Struck, and to note the mischief done, withdrew,

And then, with all a murderer's impatience, Rushed on again, crushing her ribs anew, Cleaving the noble hull well-nigh in two, And on it sped its fiery imprecations.

Swift through the vessel swept the drowning swell,

With splash, and rush, and guilty rise appalling;

While sinking cannon rung their own loud knell.

Then, cried the traitor, from his sulphurous cell,

"Do you surrender?" Oh, those words were galling!

How spake our captain to his comrades then? It was a shout from out a soul of splendor, Echoed from lofty maintop, and again Between-decks, from the lips of dying men, "Sink! sink, boys, sink! but never say surrender!"

Down went the ship! Down, down; but never down

Her sacred flag to insolent dictator. Weep for the patriot heroes, doomed to drown;

Pledge to the sunken Cumberland's renown. She sank, thank God! unsoiled by foot of traitor!

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.