How we pressed their poor brave lips (Ah, so pallid and cold!)

And held their hands to the last,
(Those who had hands to hold).

Still thee, O woman heart!
(So strong an hour ago ;)
If the idle tears must start,
'T is not in vain they flow.

They died, our children dear.
On the drear berth-deck they died,-
Do not think of them here-
Even now their footsteps near
The immortal, tender sphere-
(Land of love and cheer!
Home of the Crucified !).

And the glorious deed survives;
Our threescore, quiet and cold,
Lie thus, for a myriad lives
And treasure-millions untold,—
(Labor of poor men's lives,
Hunger of weans and wives,
Such is war-wasted gold).

Our ship and her fame to-day

Shall float on the storied Stream

When mast and shroud have crumbled away,

And her long white deck is a dream,

One daring leap in the dark,

Three mortal hours, at the most,—
And hell lies stiff and stark
On a hundred leagues of coast.

For the mighty Gulf is ours,—
The bay is lost and won,
An Empire is lost and won!
Land, if thou yet hast flowers,
Twine them in one more wreath
Of tenderest white and red,
(Twin buds of glory and death!)
For the brows of our brave dead,
For thy Navy's noblest son.

Joy, O Land, for thy sons,
Victors by flood and field!
The traitor walls and guns
Have nothing left but to yield;
(Even now they surrender!)

And the ships shall sail once more,
And the cloud of war sweep on
To break on the cruel shore ;-
But Craven is gone,

He and his hundred are gone.

The flags flutter up and down
At sunrise and twilight dim,

The cannons menace and frown,— But never again for him,

Him and the hundred.

O Mother Land! this weary life

We led, we lead, is 'long of thee; Thine the strong agony of strife,

And thine the lonely sea.

Thine the long decks all slaughter-sprent,
The weary rows of cots that lie

With wrecks of strong men, marred and rent, 'Neath Pensacola's sky.

And thine the iron caves and dens

Wherein the flame our war-fleet drives; The fiery vaults, whose breath is men's Most dear and precious lives!

Ah, ever when with storm sublime
Dread Nature clears our murky air,
Thus in the crash of falling crime
Some lesser guilt must share.

Full red the furnace fires must glow
That melt the ore of mortal kind;
The mills of God are grinding slow,
But ah, how close they grind!

To-day the Dahlgren and the drum
Are dread Apostles of His Name;
His kingdom here can only come
By chrism of blood and flame.

Be strong already slants the gold
Athwart these wild and stormy skies:
From out this blackened waste, behold
What happy homes shall rise!

But see thou well no traitor gloze,

No striking hands with Death and Shame, Betray the sacred blood that flows

So freely for thy name.

Thy children's hearts are strong and high; Nor mourn too fondly; well they know On deck or field to die.

Nor shalt thou want one willing breath,
Though, ever smiling round the brave,
The blue sea bear us on to death,
The green were one wide grave.