Classic Poem

AN INCIDENT OF SIRAIN'S EXPEDITION .

I NEVER have got the bearings quite,
Though I've followed the course for many a year,
If he was crazy, clean outright,
Or only what you might say was " queer. "

He was just a simple sailor man.
I mind it as well as yisterday,
When we messed aboard of the old " Cyane. "
Lord! how the time does slip away!
That was five and thirty year ago,
When ships was ships and men was men,
And sailors was n't afraid to stow
Themselves on a Yankee vessel then.
He was only a sort of bosun's mate,
But every inch of him taut and trim;
Stars and anchors and togs of state
Tailors don't build for the like of him.
He flew a no-account sort of name,
A reg'lar fo'cas'le " Jim " or " Jack, "
With a plain " McGinnis " abaft the same,
Giner'ly reefed to simple " Mack. "
Mack, we allowed, was sorter queer, —
Ballast or compass was n't right.
Till he licked four Juicers one day, a fear
Prevailed that he had n't larned to fight.
But I reckon the Captain knowed his man,
When he put the flag in his hand the day
That we went ashore from the old " Cyane, "
On a madman's cruise for Darien Bay.

Forty days in the wilderness
We toiled and suffered and starved with Strain,
Losing the number of many a mess
In the Devil's swamps of the Spanish Main
All of us starved, and many died.
One laid down, in his dull despair;
His stronger messmate went to his side —
We left them both in the jungle there
It was hard to part with shipmates so;
But standing by would have done no good.
We heard them moaning all day, so slow
We dragged along through the weary wood
McGinnis, he suffered the worst of all;
Not that he ever piped his eye
Or would n't have answered to the call
If they'd sounded it for " All hands to die. "
I guess 't would have sounded for him before,
But the grit inside of him kept him strong,
Till we met relief on the river shore;
And we all broke down when it came along.
All but McGinnis. Gaunt and tall,
Touching his hat, and standing square:
" Captain, the Flag. " ... And that was all;
He just keeled over and foundered there.
" The Flag? " We thought he had lost his head —
It might n't be much to lose at best —
Till we came, by-and-by, to dig his bed,
And we found it folded around his breast
He laid so calm and smiling there,
With the flag wrapped tight around his heart;
Maybe he saw his course all fair,
Only — we could n't read the chart.