And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them, Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. Till of a sudden, May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate, One forenoon the she-bird crouch'd not on the nest, Nor ever appear'd again. And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea, And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather, Over the hoarse surging of the sea, Or flitting from brier to brier by day, I saw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird, The solitary guest from Alabama. Yes, when the stars glisten'd, All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop'd stake, Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears. He call'd on his mate, He pour'd forth the meanings which I of all men know. The aria sinking, All else continuing, the stars shining, The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing, With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning, On the sands of Paumanok's shore gray and rustling, The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of the sea almost touching, The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the atmosphere dallying, The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously bursting, The aria's meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing, The strange tears down the cheeks coursing, The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering, The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying, To the boy's soul's questions sullenly timing, some drown'd secret hissing, To the outsetting bard. Demon or bird (said the boy's soul)! Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me? For I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping, now I have heard you, Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake, And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder and more sorrowful than yours, A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never to die. O you singer, solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me, O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease per petuating you, Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations, Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me, Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there in the night, By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon, The messenger there arous'd, the fire, the sweet hell within, The unknown want, the destiny of me. Henry Howard Brownell (1820-1872) Brownell was born in Providence, Rhode Island. He graduated at Trinity College, and practiced law for five years. In the early years of the Civil War he wrote a poem on Farragut that led to his appointment as acting ensign aboard the Hartford. He was an eye-witness of the battle of Mobile Bay, and after the war went with Farragut on his European cruise. He resigned from the Navy in 1868. In 1847 he published Poems, in 1864 Lyrics of a Day. Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote a preface to his War Lyrics, and Other Poems that appeared in 1866. Brownell's poem on "The Bay Fight," from which it has been necessary to make excerpts here, is one of the most striking narrative poems of the Civil War, and one of the most accurate. The battle was fought on August 5th, 1864. The poem was written shortly after, from personal and close observation. There are few or no instances in literature of so fine a poem having had its inception under such circumstances. Brownell wrote another and companion poem "The River Fight," which it would be well worth your while to look up. You will find an excerpt from it in Stedman's "American Anthology." FROM "THE BAY FIGHT” * THREE days through sapphire seas we sailed, The Northern Light his banners paled, The blue Bahama's turquoise sea. * The poem by Henry Howard Brownell is used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers. By reef and shoal obscurely mapped, But weary to the hearts of all The burning glare, the barren reach Of Santa Rosa's withered beach, And Pensacola's ruined wall. And weary was the long patrol, The thousand miles of shapeless strand, From Brazos to San Blas that roll Their drifting dunes of desert sand. A weary time, but to the strong And the volcano, laid so long, Leaped forth in thunder and in flame! "Man your starboard battery!" Kimberly shouted ;— The ship, with her hearts of oak, Was going, 'mid roar and smoke, On to victory! None of us doubted, No, not our dying,— Farragut's Flag was flying! Gaines growled low on our left, Morgan roared on our right; Before us, gloomy and fell, |