OLD IRONSIDES

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,

And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;

Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar;

The meteor of the ocean air

Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,

No more shall feel the victor's tread,

Or know the conquered knee;

The harpies of the shore shall pluck

The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,

And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,

Sails the unshadowed main,

The venturous bark that flings

5 On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings

In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea maids rise to sun their streaming

hair.

10 Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

15

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,

As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed,

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

20 He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no

more.

25 Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

5

10

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born.
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that

sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL

Prelude to Part First

Over his keys the musing organist,

Beginning doubtfully and far away,

First lets his fingers wander as they list,

15

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay:

Then, as the touch of his loved instrument

20

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme,
First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent
Along the wavering vista of his dream.

Not only around our infancy

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not.

Over our manhood bend the skies;
Against our fallen and traitor lives
The great winds utter prophecies;

With our faint hearts the mountain strives;
5 Its arms outstretched, the druid wood
Waits with its benedicite;

10

And to our age's drowsy blood

Still shouts the inspiring sea.

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in;

At the devil's booth are all things sold,
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
15 For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking:
"T is heaven alone that is given away,
'T is only God may be had for the asking;
No price is set on the lavish summer:
20 June may be had by the poorest comer.

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
25 Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,

30

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,

And, groping blindly above it for light,

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;