But Trafalgar’ is over now, The quarter-deck undone; The carved and castled navies fire Their evening-gun. O, Tital Temeraire, Your stern-lights fade away; Your bulwarks to the years must yield, And heart-of-oak decay. A pigmy steam-tug tows you, Gigantic, to the shore-- Dismantled of your guns and spars, And sweeping wings of war. The rivets clinch the iron-clads, Men learn a deadlier lore; But Fame has nailed your battle-flags-- Your ghost it sails before: O, the navies old and oaken, O, the Temeraire no more! A Utilitarian View of the Monitors Fight. Plain be the phrase, yet apt the verse, More ponderous than nimble; For since grimed War here laid aside His Orient pomp, ’twould ill befit Overmuch to ply The Rhyme’s barbaric cymbal. Hail to victory without the gaud Of glory; zeal that needs no fans Of banners; plain mechanic power Plied cogently in War now placed-- Where War belongs-- Among the trades and artisans. Yet this was battle, and intense-- Beyond the strife of fleets heroic; Deadlier, closer, calm ’mid storm; No passion; all went on by crank, Pivot, and screw, And calculations of caloric. Needless to dwell; the story’s known. the ringing of those plates on plates Still ringeth round the world-- The clangor of that blacksmith’s fray. The anvil-din Resounds this message from the Fates: War shall yet be, and to the end; But war-paint shows the streaks of weather; War yet shall be, but warriors Are now but operatives; War’s made Less grand than Peace, And a singe runs through lace and feather. Shiloh. A Requiem. (April, 1862.) Skimming lightly, wheeling still, The swallows fly low Over the field in clouded days, The forest-field of Shiloh-- Over the field where April rain Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain Through the pause of night That followed the Sunday fight Around the church of Shiloh-- The church so lone, the log-built one, That echoed to many a parting groan And natural prayer Of dying foemen mingled there-- Foemen at morn, but friends at eve-- Fame or country least their care: (What like a bullet can undeceive!) But now they lie low, While over them the swallows skim, And all is hushed at Shiloh. The Battle for the Mississipppi. (April, 1862.) When Israel camped by Migdol hoar, Down at her feet her shawm she threw, But Moses sung and timbrels rung For Pharaoh’s standed crew. So God appears in apt events-- The Lord is a man of war! So the strong wind to the muse is given In victory’s roar. Deep be the ode that hymns the fleet-- The fight by night--the fray Which bore our Flag against the powerful stream, And led it up to day. Dully through din of larger strife Shall bay that warring gun; But none the less to us who live It peals--an echoing one.