Herman Melville – The Complete Collection

Chapter 10

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 eyes 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 blacked 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 battle-ground is seen

In lifted glades, like meadows rare;

The blood-drops on the snow-crust there

Like clover in the white-week 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 deep 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 seem 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.[3]

_(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.[4]

What cheering 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,

Still vying with the Victory

Throughout that earnest race--

The Victory, whose Admiral,

With orders nobly won,

Shone in the globe of the battle glow--

The angel in that sun.

Parallel in story,

Lo, the stately pair,

As late in grapple ranging,

The foe between them there--

When four great hulls lay tiered,

And the fiery tempest cleared,

And your prizes twain appeared,

Temeraire!

But Trafalgar' is over now,

The quarter-deck undone;

The carved and castled navies fire

Their evening-gun.

O, Tital Temeraire,

Your stern-lights fade away;

Your bulwarks to the years must yield,

And heart-of-oak decay.

A pigmy steam-tug tows you,

Gigantic, to the shore--

Dismantled of your guns and spars,

And sweeping wings of war.

The rivets clinch the iron-clads,

Men learn a deadlier lore;

But Fame has nailed your battle-flags--

Your ghost it sails before:

O, the navies old and oaken,

O, the Temeraire no more!

A Utilitarian View of the Monitors Fight.

Plain be the phrase, yet apt the verse,

More ponderous than nimble;

For since grimed War here laid aside

His Orient pomp, 'twould ill befit

Overmuch to ply

The Rhyme's barbaric cymbal.

Hail to victory without the gaud

Of glory; zeal that needs no fans

Of banners; plain mechanic power

Plied cogently in War now placed--

Where War belongs--

Among the trades and artisans.

Yet this was battle, and intense--

Beyond the strife of fleets heroic;

Deadlier, closer, calm 'mid storm;

No passion; all went on by crank,

Pivot, and screw,

And calculations of caloric.

Needless to dwell; the story's known.

the ringing of those plates on plates

Still ringeth round the world--

The clangor of that blacksmith's fray.

The anvil-din

Resounds this message from the Fates:

War shall yet be, and to the end;

But war-paint shows the streaks of weather;

War yet shall be, but warriors

Are now but operatives; War's made

Less grand than Peace,

And a singe runs through lace and feather.

Shiloh.

A Requiem.

(April, 1862.)

Skimming lightly, wheeling still,

The swallows fly low

Over the field in clouded days,

The forest-field of Shiloh--

Over the field where April rain

Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain

Through the pause of night

That followed the Sunday fight

Around the church of Shiloh--

The church so lone, the log-built one,

That echoed to many a parting groan

And natural prayer

Of dying foemen mingled there--

Foemen at morn, but friends at eve--

Fame or country least their care:

(What like a bullet can undeceive!)

But now they lie low,

While over them the swallows skim,

And all is hushed at Shiloh.

The Battle for the Mississipppi.

(April, 1862.)

When Israel camped by Migdol hoar,

Down at her feet her shawm she threw,

But Moses sung and timbrels rung

For Pharaoh's standed crew.

So God appears in apt events--

The Lord is a man of war!

So the strong wind to the muse is given

In victory's roar.

Deep be the ode that hymns the fleet--

The fight by night--the fray

Which bore our Flag against the powerful stream,

And led it up to day.

Dully through din of larger strife

Shall bay that warring gun;

But none the less to us who live

It peals--an echoing one.