Kept up by relays of generations young Never dies at halyards the blithe chorus sung; While in sands, sounds, and seas where the storm-petrels cry, Dropped mute around the globe, these halyard singers lie. Short-lived the clippers for racing-cups that run, And speeds in life’s career many a lavish mother’s-son. But thou, manly king o’ the old _Splendid’s_ crew, The ribbons o’ thy hat still a-fluttering, should fly— A challenge, and forever, nor the bravery should rue. Only in a tussle for the starry flag high, When ’tis piety to do, and privilege to die. Then, only then, would heaven think to lop Such a cedar as the captain o’ the _Splendid’s_ main-top: A belted sea-gentleman; a gallant, off-hand Mercutio indifferent in life’s gay command. Magnanimous in humor; when the splintering shot fell, “Tooth-picks a-plenty, lads; thank ’em with a shell!” Sang Larry o’ the _Cannakin,_ smuggler o’ the wine, At mess between guns, lad in jovial recline: “In Limbo our Jack he would chirrup up a cheer, The martinet there find a chaffing mutineer; From a thousand fathoms down under hatches o’ your Hades, He’d ascend in love-ditty, kissing fingers to your ladies!” Never relishing the knave, though allowing for the menial, Nor overmuch the king, Jack, nor prodigally genial. Ashore on liberty he flashed in escapade, Vaulting over life in its levelness of grade, Like the dolphin off Africa in rainbow a-sweeping— Arch iridescent shot from seas languid sleeping. Larking with thy life, if a joy but a toy, Heroic in thy levity wert thou, Jack Roy. SEA PIECES THE HAGLETS By chapel bare, with walls sea-beat The lichened urns in wilds are lost About a carved memorial stone That shows, decayed and coral-mossed, A form recumbent, swords at feet, Trophies at head, and kelp for a winding-sheet. I invoke thy ghost, neglected fane, Washed by the waters’ long lament; I adjure the recumbent effigy To tell the cenotaph’s intent— Reveal why fagotted swords are at feet, Why trophies appear and weeds are the winding-sheet. By open ports the Admiral sits, And shares repose with guns that tell Of power that smote the arm’d Plate Fleet Whose sinking flag-ship’s colors fell; But over the Admiral floats in light His squadron’s flag, the red-cross Flag of the White. The eddying waters whirl astern, The prow, a seedsman, sows the spray; With bellying sails and buckling spars The black hull leaves a Milky Way; Her timbers thrill, her batteries roll, She revelling speeds exulting with pennon at pole, But ah, for standards captive trailed For all their scutcheoned castles’ pride— Castilian towers that dominate Spain, Naples, and either Ind beside; Those haughty towers, armorial ones, Rue the salute from the Admiral’s dens of guns. Ensigns and arms in trophy brave, Braver for many a rent and scar, The captor’s naval hall bedeck, Spoil that insures an earldom’s star— Toledoes great, grand draperies, too, Spain’s steel and silk, and splendors from Peru.