Cherish the heroes who fought the _Varuna_; Treat them as kings if they honor your way; Succor and comfort the sick and the wounded; Oh! for the dead let us all kneel to pray! [Illustration] [Illustration] THE RIVER FIGHT. BY HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL. [Admiral Farragut was so impressed with this irregular but spirited description of the river battle below New Orleans that he sought out the author and their acquaintance ended in a warm friendship. Brownell having expressed a desire to witness a naval conflict, Farragut took him on board the Flagship _Hartford_ at the time of the storming of the Mobile forts, and the poet repaid the courtesy with the poem which appears elsewhere in this collection, called “The Bay Fight.”--EDITOR.] Do you know of the dreary land, If land such region may seem, Where ’tis neither sea nor strand, Ocean, nor good, dry land, But the nightmare marsh of a dream? Where the Mighty River his death-road takes, ’Mid pools and windings that coil like snakes, A hundred leagues of bayous and lakes, To die in the great Gulf Stream? No coast-line clear and true, Granite and deep-sea blue, On that dismal shore you pass, Surf-worn boulder or sandy beach,-- But ooze-flats as far as the eye can reach, With shallows of water-grass; Reedy Savannahs, vast and dun, Lying dead in the dim March sun; Huge, rotting trunks and roots that lie Like the blackened bones of shapes gone by, And miles of sunken morass. No lovely, delicate thing Of life o’er the waste is seen But the cayman couched by his weedy spring, And the pelican, bird unclean, Or the buzzard, flapping with heavy wing, Like an evil ghost o’er the desolate scene. Ah! many a weary day With our Leader there we lay. In the sultry haze and smoke, Tugging our ships o’er the bar, Till the spring was wasted far, Till his brave heart almost broke. For the sullen river seemed As if our intent he dreamed,-- All his sallow mouths did spew and choke. But ere April fully passed All ground over at last And we knew the die was cast,-- Knew the day drew nigh To dare to the end one stormy deed, Might save the land at her sorest need, Or on the old deck to die! Anchored we lay,--and a morn the more, To his captains and all his men Thus wrote our old commodore-- (He wasn’t Admiral then):-- “GENERAL ORDERS: Send your to’gallant masts down, Rig in each flying jib-boom! Clear all ahead for the loom Of traitor fortress and town, Or traitor fleet bearing down “In with your canvas high; We shall want no sail to fly! Top sail, foresail, spanker, and jib, (With the heart of oak in the oaken rib,) Shall serve us to win or die!