James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
November 6The Old Admiral
By Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908)
G
That brave old hero of the Past!
His spirit has a second birth,
An unknown, grander life;—
All of him that was earth
Lies mute and cold,
Like a wrinkled sheath and old
Thrown off forever from the shimmering blade
That has good entrance made
Upon some distant, glorious strife.
A simpler age, to ours Old Ironsides came;
The morn and noontide of the nation
Alike he knew, nor yet outlived his fame,—
O, not outlived his fame!
The dauntless men whose service guards our shore
Lengthen still their glory-roll
With his name to lead the scroll,
As a flagship at her fore
Carries the Union, with its azure and the stars,
Symbol of times that are no more
And the old heroic wars.
Whom Death had spared alone
Of all the captains of that lusty age,
Who sought the foeman where he lay.
On sea or sheltering bay,
Nor till the prize was theirs repressed their rage.
They are gone,—all gone:
They rest with glory and the undying Powers;
Only their name and fame and what they saved are ours!
Upon the Gallic Sea,
He bore the banner of the free,
And fought the fight whereof our children know.
The deathful, desperate fight!—
Under the fair moon’s light
The frigate squared, and yawed to left and right.
Every broadside swept to death a score!
Roundly played her guns and well, till their fiery ensigns fell,
Neither foe replying more.
Old Ironsides rested there,
Locked in between the twain, and drenched with blood.
Then homeward, like an eagle with her prey!
O, it was a gallant fray,
That fight in Biscay Bay!
Fearless the Captain stood, in his youthful hardihood;
He was the boldest or them all,
Our brave old Admiral!
Taught by that golden deed.
Whether of iron or of oak
The ships we marshal at our country’s need,
Still speak their cannon now as then they spoke;
Still floats our unstruck banner from the mast
As in the stormy Past.
Let him rest where the ancient river rolls;
Let him sleep beneath the shadow and the sound
Of the bell whose proclamation, as it tolls,
Is of Freedom and the gift our father’s gave,
Lay him gently down:
The clamor of the town
Will not break the slumbers deep, the beautiful ripe sleep
Of this lion of the wave,
Will not trouble the old Admiral in his grave.
Methinks his stately shade
On the shadow of a great ship leaves the shore;
Over cloudless western seas
Seeks the far Hesperides,
The islands of the blest,
Where no turbulent billows roar,—
Where is rest.
His ghost upon the shadowy quarter stands
Nearing the deathless lands.
There all his martial mates, renewed and strong,
Await his coming long.
I see the happy Heroes rise
With gratulation in their eyes:
“Welcome, old comrade,” Lawrence cries;
“Ah, Stewart, tell us of the wars!
Who win the glory and the scars?
How floats the skyey flag,—how many stars?
Still speak they of Decatur’s name,
Of Bainbridge’s and Perry’s fame?
Of me, who earliest came?
Make ready, all:
Room for the Admiral!
Come, Stewart, tell us of the wars!”