Eight hundred of the brave, Whose courage well was tried. Had made the vessel heel, And laid her on her side. A land-breeze shook the shrouds, And she was overset; Down went the Royal George, With all her crew complete. Toll for the brave ! Brave Kempenfelt is gone; His last sca-fight is fought, His work of glory done. It was not in the battle ; No tempest gave the shock; She sprang no fatal leak; She ran upon no rock. | Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries, O, were it mine with tuneful Maro's art As o'er the surge the stooping mainmast hung, tide, His sword was in its sheath; His fingers held the pen, When Kempenfelt went down With twice four hundred men. Weigh the vessel up, Once dreaded by our foes ! And mingle with our cup The tear that England owes. Her timbers yet are sound, And she may float again, Full charged with England's thunder, And plough the distant main. WILLIAM FALCONER. But Kempenfelt is gone; . His victories are o'er ; WILLIAM COWPER. YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND. A NAVAL ODE. THE SHIPWRECK. IN vain the cords and axes were prepared, For now the audacious seas insult the yard ; High o'er the ship they throw a horrid shade, And o'er her burst in terrible cascade. Uplifted on the surge, to heaven she flies, Her shattered top half-buried in the skies, Then headlong plunging thunders on the ground; Earth groans ! air trembles ! and the deeps re sound ! Her giant-bulk the dread concussion feels, And quivering with the wound in torment reels. So reels, convulsed with agonizing throes, The bleeding bull beneath the murderer's blows. Agnin she plunges ! hark ! a second shock Tears her strong bottom on the marble rock : YE mariners of England, II. Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell, III. But the might of England flushed To anticipate the scene; And her van the flecter rushed O'er the dendly space between. “Hearts of oak!” our captains cried; when each gun From its adamantine lips Spread a death-shade round the ships, Like the hurricane eclipse of the sun. IV. III. Britannia nccds no bulwarks, No towers along the steep; Her march is o'er the mountain-waves, Her home is on the deep. With thunders from her native oak, She quells the floods below, — As they roar on the shore, When the stormy winds do blow; When the battle rages loud and long And the stormy winds do blow. IV. Thc meteor Nag of England THOMAS CAMPBELL. BATTLE OF THE BALTIC. ILTIC. "Look to the Baltic, - blazing from afar, Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war." Again ! again ! again ! iv. vi. | Then Denmark blessed our chief, | That he gave her wounds reposc ; And the sounds of joy and grief From her people wildly rose, As Death withdrew his shades from the day While the sun looked smiling bright | O'er a wide and woful sight, Where the fires of f:ineral light Died away. VII. VIII. BYRON. 1. Or Nelson and the North Sing the glorious day's renown, When to battle fierce camc forth All the might of Denmark's crown, And her arms along the deep proudly shone By cach gun the lighted brand, In a bold, determined hand, And the prince of all the land Led them on. II. Like leviathans afloat, Lay their bulwarks on the brine; While the sign of battle flew On the lofty Britislı line ; It was ten of April morn by the chime : As they drifter on their path, There was silence (leep as death; And the boldest held his breath For a time. Yet beautiful and bright he stood, That Ninety-ciglit I sailed on board ; As born to rule the storm ; Along the Frenchman's coast we flew; A creature of heroic blood, Right aft the rising tempest roared ; A proud though childlike form. A noble first-rate love in view ; And soon high in the gale there soared The flames rolled on ; he would not go Her streamed-ont bunting, - red, white, blue ! Without his father's worl; We cleared for fight, and landward bore, That father, faint in death below, To get between the chase and shorc. His voice no longer hcard. Masters, I cannot spin a yarn Twice laid with worils of silken stuff. He called aloud, “Say, father, say, A fact's a fact ; and ye may larn If yet my task be done ?” 1 The rights o' this, though wild and rough He knew not that the chieftain lay My words may loom. 'T is your cousarn, Unconscious of his son. Not mine, to understand. Enough ; We neared the Frenchman where he lay, “Speak, father!" once again he cried, And as we neared, he blazed away. “If I may yet be gone!” And but the booming shots replied, Wc tacked, hove to ; we filled, we woro; And fast the flames rolled on. Did all that seamanship could do To rake him aft, or by the fore, — Upon his brow he felt their breath, Now rounded off, and now broached to; And in his waving hair, And now our starboard broadside bore, And looked from that lone post of death And showers of iron through and through In still yet brave despair; His vast hull lissed ; our larboard then Swept from his threefold decks his men. And shouted but once more aloud, “My father! must I stay ?”. As wc, like a huge serpent, toiled, While o'er him sast, through sail and shroud. ! And wound about, through that wild sea, The wreathing fires maile way. . The Frenchman cach manauvre foiled, 'Vantage to neither there could be. They wrapt the ship in splendor wild, Whilst thus the waves between us boiled, They canght the flag on high, We both resolved right manfully And streamcıl above the gallant child, To figlit it side by side ; – began Like banners in the sky. Then the fierce strife of man to man. Therc came a burst of thunder sound; Gun bellows forth to gun, and pain The boy, - Oh! where was he? Rings out lier wildi, delirious scream ! Ask of the winds, that far around Redoubling thunders shake the main ; With fignents strewed the sea, - I Loud crashing, falls the sliot-rcnt bcam. The timbers with the broadsides strain ; The slippery decks send up a steam From hot and living blood, and high And shrill is heard the death-pang cry. The shredded limb, the splintered bone, The unstiffened corpse, now block the way! Who now can hear the dying groan ? The trumpet of the judgment-day, We should not then have heard, - to say Upon the forecastle I fought As captain of the for'ad gun. What mother then had known her son Of those who stood around ? --- distraught, And smeared with gore, about they run, Then fall, and writhe, and howling die ! But one escaped, – that one was I ! | The blessed tear was on my check, She smiled with that old smile I know : “Turn to me, mother, turn and speak," Was on my quivering lips, — when lo ! Glared wild and vivid from the foe, All burning, helplessly, she came, – Had we to help us from that flame. 'T was then the bravest stood aghast, 'T was then the wicked, on the name (With danger and with guilt appalled) Of God, too long neglected, called. The eddying flames with ravening tongue Now on our ship's dark bulwarks dash, – We almost touched, — when ocean rung Down to its depths with one loud crash! In heaven's top vault one instant hung The vast, intense, and blinding flash! The wave moaned o'er the valiant dead. And though she left us in a plight, And hard, the labors of that night To clear the wreck. At length in tow A frigate took us, when 't was light; I like not of that fight to tell. Messmates, I've done. A spell, ho! spell, Though a pressed man, I'll still be found To do a seaman's duty well. ANONYMOUS. Night darkened round, and the storm pealed; To windward of us lay the foe. He could not fight his guns below; Our vessel, as if some vast blow Then howled the thunder. Tumult then Had stunned herself to silence. Round Were scattered lightning-blasted men ! Our mainmast went. All stifled, drowned, Arose the Frenchman's shout. Again The bolt burst on us, and we found Man's war mocks faintly that of heaven! Just then, - nay, messmates, laugh not now, As I, amazed, one minute stood Amidst that rout, — I know not how, — 'T was silence all, — the raving flood, The guns that pealed from stem to bow, And God's own thunder, — nothing could I then of all that tumult hear, Or see aught of that scene of fear, — My aged mother at her door Sat mildly o'er her humming wheel ; The cottage, orchard, and the moor, – I saw them plainly all. I'll kneel, And swear I saw them! O, they wore A look all peace ? Could I but feel Again that bliss that then I felt, That made my heart, like childhood's, melt! THE SAILOR'S WIFE. And are ye sure he's weel ? Ye jades, lay by your wheel When Colin's at the door! And see him como ashore. There 's nac luck at a'; When our gudeman 's awa'. If Sir Sidney was wrong, why then black ball my song, CHARLES DIBDIN. NAPOLEON AND THE BRITISH SAILOR. Sae true his heart, sae smooth his speech, His breath like caller air ; His very foot has music in 't As he comes up the stair, - And will I hear him speak? In troth I 'm like to greet ! I hae nae mair to crave : I'm blest aboon thc lave : And will I hear him speak ? In troth I 'm like to greet. There's nae luck at a'; W. J. MICKLE. I LOVE contemplating - apart From all his homicidal glory - Napoleon's glory! 'T was when his banners at Boulogne Armed in our island every freeman, Poor British seaman. They suffered him — I know not how Unprisoned on the shore to roam ; On England's home. SIR SIDNEY SMITH. His eye, methinks ! pursued the flight Of birds to Britain half-way over ; GENTLEFOLKS, in my time, I've made many a i With envy they could reach the white rhyme, Dear cliffs of Dover. Than this sojourn would have been dearer, The subject's Sir Siilney Smith, it is ; If but the storm his vessel brought The subject's Sir Sidney Smith. To England nearer. |
