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Our heavy pivots roared;

And shot and shell, a fire.of hell,
Against her sides we poured.

God's mercy! from her sloping roof
'The iron tempest glanced,

As hail bounds from a cottage thatch,
And round her leaped and danced ;

Or when against her dusky hull
We struck a fair, full blow,
The mighty, solid iron globes
Were crumbled up like snow.

On, on, with fast increasing speed
The silent monster came,
Though all our starboard battery
Was one long line of flame.

She heeded not, no gun she fired,

Straight on our bow she bore;

Through riving plank and crashing frame
Her furious way she tore.

Alas! our beautiful, keen bow,
That in the fiercest blast
So gently folded back the seas,
They hardly felt we passed!

Alas! alas! my Cumberland,

That ne'er knew grief before,
To be so gored, to feel so deep
The tusk of that sea-boar!

Once more she backward drew a space,
Once more our side she rent;
Then, in the wantonness of hate,
Her broadside through us sent.

The dead and dying round us lay,
But our foeman lay abeam;
Her open port-holes maddened us;
We fired with shout and scream.

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I tried to speak. He understood

The wish I could not speak.

He turned me. There, thank God! the flag
Still fluttered at the peak!

And there, while thread shall hang to thread,

O let that ensign fly!

The noblest constellation set

Against our northern sky.

A sign that we who live may claim
The peerage of the brave;
A monument, that needs no scroll,
For those beneath the wave.

LXXXVII.

THE SWORD-BEARER.

G. W. BOKER-MARCH 8, 1862.

Brave Morris saw the day was lost;
For nothing now remained,

On the wrecked and sinking Cumberland,
But to save the flag unstained.

So he swore an oath in sight of Heaven,
If he kept it the world can tell:-
"Before I strike to a rebel flag,

I'll sink to the gates of hell!

"Here, take my sword; 't is in my way;
I shall trip o'er the useless steel;
For I'll meet the lot that falls to all
With my shoulder at the wheel."

So the little negro took the sword;
And O with what reverent care,
Following his master step by step,
He bore it here and there!

A thought had crept through his sluggish brain, And shone in his dusky face,

That somehow-he could not tell just how'T was the sword of his trampled race.

And as Morris, great with his lion heart,
Rushed onward, from gun to gun,
The little negro slid after him,

Like a shadow in the sun.

But something of pomp and of curious pride

The sable creature wore,

Which at any time but a time like that

Would have made the ship's crew roar.

Over the wounded, dying, and dead,
Like an usher of the rod,

The black page, full of his mighty trust,
With dainty caution trod.

No heed he gave to the flying ball,
No heed to the bursting shell;
His duty was something more than life,
And he strove to do it well.

Down, with our starry flag apeak,
In the whirling sea we sank,

And captain and crew and the sword-bearer
Were washed from the bloody plank.

They picked us up from the hungry waves; Alas! not all! "And where,

Where is the faithful negro lad?"

"Back oars! avast! look there!"

We looked; and as heaven may save my soul,

I pledge you a sailor's word,

There, fathoms deep in the sea, he lay,
Still grasping his master's sword!

We drew him out; and many an hour
We wrought with his rigid form,
Ere the almost smothered spark of life
By slow degrees grew warm.

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