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| IN Hampton Roads the airs of March were bland, | |
| Peace on the deck, and in the fortress sleeping, | |
| Till, in the lookout of the Cumberland, | |
| The sailor, with his well-poised glass in hand, | |
| Descried the iron island downward creeping. | 5 |
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| A sudden wonder seized on land and bay, | |
| And Tumult, with her train, was there to follow; | |
| For still the stranger kept its seaward way, | |
| Looking a great leviathan blowing spray, | |
| Seeking with steady course his ocean wallow. | 10 |
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| And still it came, and largened on the sight; | |
| A floating monster, ugly and gigantic; | |
| In shape, a wave, with long and shelving height, | |
| As if a mighty billow, heaved at night, | |
| Should turn to iron in the mid-Atlantic. | 15 |
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| Then ship and fortress gazed with anxious stare, | |
| Until the Cumberland’s cannon, silence breaking, | |
| Thundered its guardian challenge, “Who comes there?” | |
| But, like a rock-flung echo in the air, | |
| The shot rebounded, no impression making. | 20 |
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| Then roared a broadside; though directed well, | |
| On, like a nightmare, moved the shape defiant; | |
| The tempest of our pounding shot and shell, | |
| Crumbled to harmless nothing, thickly fell | |
| From off the sounding armor of the giant! | 25 |
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| Unchecked, still onward through the storm it broke, | |
| With beak directed at the vessel’s centre; | |
| Then through the constant cloud of sulphurous smoke | |
| Drove, till it struck the warrior’s wall of oak, | |
| Making a gateway for the waves to enter. | 30 |
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| Struck, and to note the mischief done, withdrew, | |
| And then, with all a murderer’s impatience, | |
| Rushed on again, crushing her ribs anew, | |
| Cleaving the noble hull wellnigh in two, | |
| And on it sped its fiery imprecations. | 35 |
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| Swift through the vessel swept the drowning swell, | |
| With splash, and rush, and guilty rise appalling; | |
| While sinking cannon rung their own loud knell. | |
| Then cried the traitor, from his sulphurous cell, | |
| “Do you surrender?” Oh, those words were galling! | 40 |
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| How spake our captain to his comrades then? | |
| It was a shout from out a soul of splendor, | |
| Echoed from lofty maintop, and again | |
| Between-decks, from the lips of dying men, | |
| “Sink! sink, boys, sink! but never say surrender!” | 45 |
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| Down went the ship! Down, down; but never down | |
| Her sacred flag to insolent dictator. | |
| Weep for the patriot heroes, doomed to drown; | |
| Pledge to the sunken Cumberland’s renown. | |
| She sank, thank God! unsoiled by foot of traitor! | 50 |
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