Classic Poem

The sun shone bright, and in its light
The Mersey glittered free;
With flying clouds the sky was white,
With flying sails the sea.

For there the New World meets the Old,
In traffic's busy quest,
At the great gate through which is rolled
The commerce of the West.

There ships of every sea unload,
What every soil is worth,
And England, on the ocean road,
Takes toll of all the earth.

The wheat that surged in tawny waves,
A fathom to and fro,
On the fat prairie, where the braves
Once chased the buffalo;

The western forest's growth untrained,
Of patriarchal trees,
Beneath whose wrinkled bark are grained
The rings of centuries;

Great ingots of the virgin gold
From Sacramento's sides,
And trophies wrung from Arctic cold,
The trapper's furs and hides;

Are borne and gathered as of yore,
By every western breeze,
To the great port on England's shore,
That fronts the western seas.

But not the bales that piled the quay,
And gorged each groaning store,
With fleece that fed, by night and day,
The humming mills of yore.

Of warring States the fragile test,
The wedge of down, whose strain
Has split the Empire of the West,
And cleft a world in twain.

It cumbers now with ruin wan
The Mississippi's foam,
Or lights the dusky freedman on,
To sack the Planter's home;

While echoing mills deserted stand,
Their whirl and clamour stayed,
And starving millions through the land,
Invoke a nation's aid.

Yet swarmed the sea, for none the less
In hundreds every tide,
Ships went and came, and none could guess
That here a trade had died.

As in and out the ebb and flow
Six hours each way were flung,
Still east and west, and to and fro,
The great ships veered and swung.

And throbbing onward fast and free,
On their white paths were driven
Swift things with wheels that scarred the sea,
And breath that sullied heaven.

The dock-yard's clamour never failed,
The iron ribs yet rose,
And grew to ships as on them hailed
The ringing rain of blows.

The sun shone bright, the tide ran out,
And east-north-east it blew,
The vanes no longer veered about,
The glass was steady too.

At every prow a bending row
Of seamen toiled and cheered—
Heave, heave, hallo! for westward ho
Each goodly ship was cleared.

And wind and tide were spur and whip,
Fierce ebb and eastern gale,
And down the channel ship chased ship,
A leaning tower of sail.

Forth flaunted sun and gale to seek
The nations' rainbow types,
And glittering flew, at many a peak,
The radiant Stars and Stripes.

But one, the flag that stood alone
Against a hostile world.
In shortlived glory all unknown,
No vessel showed unfurled.

Then a great steam-ship long and black
Rushed seaward with the tide,
Where kindling white a tumbling track,
She settled to her stride.

Her masts sloped aft, her bow was keen
She was a gallant ship,
Her deck was gay with silken sheen,
It was her Trial Trip.

Aye, put her to the test indeed,
And wheel and engine strain,
For she shall need their utmost speed
Ere reaching port again.

Her Trial Trip! they little knew
Who trode her deck that day,
What proof to dare, what work to do,
She smote her seaward way.

They little guessed, from ship or shore,
Who watched the meteor by,
The destiny for her in store,
The fate she rushed to try.

The vaunting ensign of the North
Exulted in the breeze,
As the Avenging Ship went forth
To scare it from the seas.

For she shall scourge its mighty trade,
O'er all the ocean face,
And hunt it down, where'er displayed,
To tempt her to the chase.

Her pathway, scathed with brand and pyre,
From shore to shore shall sweep,
And havoc-harvests reaped in fire,
Shall track her o'er the deep.

The Northern flag shall hide for fear,
Nor tempt the doom of flame,
And Northern cities shake to hear
The “Alabama's” name.

But yet the future all was dark,
For none its signs might read,
And men but saw a nameless barque
Go forth to try her speed.