Commemorative Of A Naval Victory

Sailors there are of the gentlest breed,

  Yet strong, like every goodly thing;

The discipline of arms refines,

  And the wave gives tempering.

  The damasked blade its beam can fling;

It lends the last grave grace:

The hawk, the hound, and sworded nobleman

  In Titian's picture for a king,

Are of hunter or warrior race.

In social halls a favored guest

  In years that follow victory won,

How sweet to feel your festal fame

  In woman's glance instinctive thrown:

  Repose is yours--your deed is known,

It musks the amber wine;

It lives, and sheds a light from storied days

  Rich as October sunsets brown,

Which make the barren place to shine.

But seldom the laurel wreath is seen

  Unmixed with pensive pansies dark;

There's a light and a shadow on every man

  Who at last attains his lifted mark--

  Nursing through night the ethereal spark.

Elate he never can be;

He feels that spirit which glad had hailed his

    worth,

  Sleep in oblivion.--The shark

Glides white through the phosphorus sea.