Herman Melville

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 Dreadnought, 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 involuntarily 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, For I’ve received orders for to sail for the Deadman, But hope with the grand fleet to see you again. I have hove my ship to, with main-top-sail aback, boys; I have hove my ship to, for to strike soundings clear— The black scud a’flying; but, by God’s blessing, dam’ me, Right up the Channel for the Deadman I’ll steer. I have worried through the waters that are call d the Doldrums, And growled at Sargasso that clogs while ye grope— Blast my eyes, but the light-ship is hid by the mist, lads:— Flying Dutchman —odds bobbs—off the Cape of Good Hope! But what’s this I feel that is fanning my cheek, Matt? The white goney’s wing?—how she rolls!—’t is the Cape! Give my kit to the mess, Jock, for kin none is mine, none; And tell Holy Joe to avast with the crape. Dead reckoning, says Joe , it won’t do to go by; But they doused all the glims, Matt, in sky t’ other night. Dead reckoning is good for to sail for the Deadman; And Tom Deadlight he thinks it may reckon near right. The signal!—it streams for the grand fleet to anchor. The captains—the trumpets—the hullabaloo! Stand by for blue-blazes, and mind your shank-painters, For the Lord High Admiral, he’s squinting at you! But give me my tot , Matt, before I roll over; Jock, let’s have your flipper, it’s good for to feel; And don’t sew me up without baccy in mouth, boys, And don’t blubber like lubbers when I turn up my keel.

There is a coal-black Angel With a thick Afric lip, And he dwells (like the hunted and harried) In a swamp where the green frogs dip. But his face is against a City Which is over a bay of the sea, And he breathes with a breath that is blastment, And dooms by a far decree. By night there is fear in the City, Through the darkness a star soareth on; There’s a scream that screams up to the zenith, Then the poise of a meteor lone— Lighting far the pale fright of the faces, And downward the coming is seen; Then the rush, and the burst, and the havoc, And wails and shrieks between. It comes like the thief in the gloaming; It comes, and none may foretell The place of the coming—the glaring; They live in a sleepless spell That wizens, and withers, and whitens; It ages the young, and the bloom Of the maiden is ashes of roses— The Swamp Angel broods in his gloom. Swift is his messengers’ going, But slowly he saps their halls, As if by delay deluding. They move from their crumbling walls Farther and farther away; But the Angel sends after and after, By night with the flame of his ray— By night with the voice of his screaming— Sends after them, stone by stone, And farther walls fall, farther portals, And weed follows weed through the Town. Is this the proud City? the scorner Which never would yield the ground? Which mocked at the coal-black Angel? The cup of despair goes round. Vainly she calls upon Michael (The white man’s seraph was he), For Michael has fled from his tower To the Angel over the sea. Who weeps for the woeful City Let him weep for our guilty kind; Who joys at her wild despairing— Christ, the Forgiver, convert his mind.

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.

(October, 1864) Shoe the steed with silver That bore him to the fray, When he heard the guns at dawning— Miles away; When he heard them calling, calling— Mount! nor stay: Quick, or all is lost; They’ve surprised and stormed the post, They push your routed host— Gallop! retrieve the day! House the horse in ermine— For the foam-flake blew White through the red October; He thundered into view; They cheered him in the looming; Horseman and horse they knew. The turn of the tide began, The rally of bugles ran, He swung his hat in the van; The electric hoof-spark flew. Wreathe the steed and lead him— For the charge he led Touched and turned the cypress Into amaranths for the head Of Philip, king of riders, Who raised them from the dead. The camp (at dawning lost) By eve recovered—forced, Rang with laughter of the host At belated Early fled. Shroud the horse in sable— For the mounds they heap! There is firing in the Valley, And yet no strife they keep; It is the parting volley, It is the pathos deep. There is glory for the brave Who lead, and nobly save, But no knowledge in the grave Where the nameless followers sleep.

The ribs and terrors in the whale, Arched over me a dismal gloom, While all God’s sun-lit waves rolled by, And left me deepening down to doom. I saw the opening maw of hell, With endless pains and sorrows there; Which none but they that feel can tell— Oh, I was plunging to despair. In black distress, I called my God, When I could scarce believe him mine, He bowed his ear to my complaints— No more the whale did me confine. With speed he flew to my relief, As on a radiant dolphin borne; Awful, yet bright, as lightening shone The face of my Deliverer God. My song for ever shall record That terrible, that joyful hour; I give the glory to my God, His all the mercy and the power.

Hanging from the beam, Slowly swaying (such the law), Gaunt the shadow on your green, Shenandoah! The cut is on the crown (Lo, John Brown), And the stabs shall heal no more. Hidden in the cap Is the anguish none can draw; So your future veils its face, Shenandoah! But the streaming beard is shown (Weird John Brown), The meteor of the war.

To have known him, to have loved him After loneness long; And then to be estranged in life, And neither in the wrong; And now for death to set his seal— Ease me, a little ease, my song! By wintry hills his hermit-mound The sheeted snow-drifts drape, And houseless there the snow-bird flits Beneath the fir-trees’ crape: Glazed now with ice the cloistral vine That hid the shyest grape.

When ocean-clouds over inland hills Sweep storming in late autumn brown, And horror the sodden valley fills, And the spire falls crashing in the town, I muse upon my country’s ills— The tempest bursting from the waste of Time On the world’s fairest hope linked with man’s foulest crime. Nature’s dark side is heeded now— (Ah! optimist-cheer disheartened flown)— A child may read the moody brow Of yon black mountain lone. With shouts the torrents down the gorges go, And storms are formed behind the storm we feel: The hemlock shakes in the rafter, the oak in the driving keel.

Indicative of the passion of the people on the 15th of April, 1865 Good Friday was the day Of the prodigy and crime, When they killed him in his pity, When they killed him in his prime Of clemency and calm— When with yearning he was filled To redeem the evil-willed, And, though conqueror, be kind; But they killed him in his kindness, In their madness and their blindness, And they killed him from behind. There is sobbing of the strong, And a pall upon the land; But the People in their weeping Bare the iron hand: Beware the People weeping When they bare the iron hand. He lieth in his blood— The father in his face; They have killed him, the Forgiver— The Avenger takes his place, The Avenger wisely stern, Who in righteousness shall do What heavens call him to, And the parricides remand; For they killed him in his kindness, In their madness and their blindness. And his blood is on their hand. There is sobbing of the strong, And a pall upon the land; But the People in their weeping Bare the iron hand: Beware the People weeping When they bare the iron hand.

Did all the lets and bars appear To every just or larger end, Whence should come the trust and cheer? Youth must its ignorant impulse lend— Age finds place in the rear. All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys, The champions and enthusiasts of the state: Turbid ardors and vain joys Not barrenly abate— Stimulants to the power mature, Preparatives of fate. Who here forecasteth the event? What heart but spurns at precedent And warnings of the wise, Contemned foreclosures of surprise? The banners play, the bugles call, The air is blue and prodigal. No berrying party, pleasure-wooed, No picnic party in the May, Ever went less loth than they Into that leafy neighborhood. In Bacchic glee they file toward Fate, Moloch’s uninitiate; Expectancy, and glad surmise Of battle’s unknown mysteries. All they feel is this: ’tis glory, A rapture sharp, though transitory, Yet lasting in belaureled story. So they gayly go to fight, Chatting left and laughing right. But some who this blithe mood present, As on in lightsome files they fare, Shall die experienced ere three days be spent— Perish, enlightened by the vollied glare; Or shame survive, and, like to adamant, Thy after shock, Manassas, share.