And never fear a victor foe-- Thy children’s hearts are strong and high; Nor mourn too fondly; well they know On deck or field to die. Nor shalt thou want one willing breath, Though, ever smiling round the brave, The blue sea bear us on to death, The green were one wide grave. [Illustration] [Illustration] THE LOYAL FISHER. The wife in the cot is lonely Since the fisher went away, And the sun-burnt child it hath not smil’d This many and many a day. And the schools of mack’rel come unscared To the shoals of the inner bay. For the fisherman said one spring-time: “Dear wife, I have set my sail These twenty years to the northern meres, The icebergs, the mist and gale, And my country hath paid the shot, good wife, However I chanced to fail.” “Yes, paid for my sailor’s knowledge, And the skill of my ready hand; And the blue on my arm, as a sacred charm, Is the flag that guards the land. The time has come to pay that debt, Tho’ my life it should demand.” So bravely the loyal fisher Sailed for the southern sea, Never a hook nor a bait he took For the deadly fishery; But the staunchest man at the straining rope In the northerner was he. On the bloody deck of the _Hartford_ At last the fisher lay, The azure charm pricked on his arm Was striped with red that day; And his debt of twenty years was paid With a life in Mobile Bay. [Illustration] [Illustration] SHERMAN’S MARCH TO THE SEA. BY SAMUEL H. M. BYERS. [General Sherman, in a recent conversation with the editor of this collection, declared that it was this poem with its phrase, “march to the sea,” that threw a glamour of romance over the campaign which it celebrates. Said General Sherman: “The thing was nothing more or less than a change of base, an operation perfectly familiar to every military man, but a poet got hold of it, gave it the captivating label, ‘The March to the Sea,’ and the unmilitary public made a romance out of it.” It may be remarked that the General’s modesty overlooks the important fact that the romance lay really in his own deed of derring-do; the poet merely recorded it, or at most interpreted it to the popular intelligence. The glory of the great campaign was Sherman’s and his army’s; the joy of celebrating it was the poet’s; the admiring memory of it is the people’s.--EDITOR.] [Illustration] SHERMAN’S MARCH TO THE SEA. Our camp-fires shone bright on the mountain That frowned on the river below, As we stood by our guns in the morning, And eagerly watched for the foe; When a rider came out of the darkness That hung over mountain and tree, And shouted: “Boys, up and be ready! For Sherman will march to the sea.”