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, nor 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 portholes maddened us; We fired with shout and scream. We felt our vessel settling fast, We knew our time was brief; “The pumps, the pumps!” But they who pumped And fought not, wept with grief. “Oh, keep us but an hour afloat! Oh, give us only time To be the instruments of heaven Against the traitors’ crime!” From captain down to powder-boy, No hand was idle then; Two soldiers, but by chance aboard, Fought on like sailor-men. And when a gun’s crew lost a hand, Some bold marine stepped out, And jerked his braided jacket off, And hauled the gun about. Our forward magazine was drowned; And up from the sick-bay Crawled out the wounded, red with blood, And round us gasping lay. Yes, cheering, calling us by name, Struggling with failing breath, To keep their shipmates at the port, While glory strove with death. With decks afloat, and powder gone, The last broadside we gave From the guns’ heated iron lips Burst out beneath the wave. So sponges, rammers, and handspikes-- As men-of-war’s men should-- We placed within their proper racks, And at our quarters stood. “Up to the spar-deck! Save yourselves!” Cried Selfridge. “Up, my men! God grant that some of us may live To fight yon ship again!” We turned--we did not like to go; Yet staying seemed but vain, Knee-deep in water; so we left; Some swore, some groaned with pain. We reached the deck. Here Randall stood: “Another turn, men--so!” Calmly he aimed his pivot-gun: “Now, Tenney, let her go!” It did our sore hearts good to hear The song our pivot sang, As rushing on, from wave to wave, The whirring bomb-shell sprang.