We are not idle, but send her straight Defiance back in a full broadside! As hail rebounds from a roof of slate, Rebounds our heavier hail From each iron scale Of the monster's hide. 'Strike your flag!' the rebel cries, In his arrogant old plantation strain 'Never!' our gallant Morris replies; 'It is better to sink than to yield!' And the whole air pealed With the cheers of our men. Then, like a kraken huge and black, She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp! Down went the Cumberland all a wreck, With a sudden shudder of death, And the cannon's breath For her dying gasp. Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, Still floated our flag at the mainmast head. Lord, how beautiful was thy day! Every waft of the air Was a whisper of prayer, Or a dirge for the dead. Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas, Ye are at peace in the troubled stream! Ho! brave land! with hearts like these, Thy flag that is rent in twain Shall be one again, And without a seam! _Longfellow._ XCII A DUTCH PICTURE Simon Danz has come home again, From cruising about with his buccaneers; He has singed the beard of the King of Spain, And carried away the Dean of Jaen And sold him in Algiers. In his house by the Maes, with its roof of tiles And weathercocks flying aloft in air, There are silver tankards of antique styles, Plunder of convent and castle, and piles Of carpets rich and rare. In his tulip-garden there by the town, Overlooking the sluggish stream, With his Moorish cap and dressing-gown, The old sea-captain, hale and brown, Walks in a waking dream. A smile in his grey mustachio lurks Whenever he thinks of the King of Spain, And the listed tulips look like Turks, And the silent gardener as he works Is changed to the Dean of Jaen. The windmills on the outermost Verge of the landscape in the haze, To him are towers on the Spanish coast With whiskered sentinels at their post, Though this is the river Maes. But when the winter rains begin, He sits and smokes by the blazing brands, And old seafaring men come in, Goat-bearded, grey, and with double chin, And rings upon their hands. They sit there in the shadow and shine Of the flickering fire of the winter night; Figures in colour and design Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine, Half darkness and half light. And they talk of their ventures lost or won, And their talk is ever and ever the same, While they drink the red wine of Tarragon, From the cellars of some Spanish Don Or convent set on flame. Restless at times, with heavy strides He paces his parlour to and fro; He is like a ship that at anchor rides, And swings with the rising and falling tides, And tugs at her anchor-tow.