Around, and up in the dusky air, As our hammers forge the Sword. The sword!-a name of dread; yet when Whenever for the truth and right Or on some sterile plain and stern, ANONYMOUS. THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR. COME, see the Dolphin's anchor forged! 't is at a white heat now The bellows ceased, the flames decreased; though, on the forge's brow, The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound; And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round; All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare, Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there. The windlass strains the tackle-chains-the black mould heaves below; 'Tis blinding white, 't is blasting bright-the high sun shines not so! The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery fearful show! The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid row Of smiths-that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe! As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster slow Sinks on the anvil-all about, the faces fiery grow: "Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out, leap out!" bang, bang! the sledges go; Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low; A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow; The leathern mail rebounds the hail; the rattling cinders strew The ground around; at every bound the sweltering fountains flow; And, thick and loud, the swinking crowd at every stroke pant "ho!" Leap out, leap out, my masters! leap out, and lay on load! Let's forge a goodly anchor-a bower thick and broad; For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode; And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road The low reef roaring on her lea; the roll of ocean poured From stem to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board; The bulwarks down; the rudder gone; the boats stove at the chains; But courage still, brave mariners-the bower yet remains! And not an inch to flinch he deigns-save when ye pitch sky high; Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing-here am I!" Swing in your strokes in order! let foot and hand keep time; And red and deep, a hundred veins burst out Your blows make music sweeter far than at every throe. any steeple's chime. It rises, roars, rends all outright—O, Vulcan, But while ye swing your sledges, sing; and let the burthen be, what a glow! THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR. 595 The anchor is the anvil king, and royal crafts- Of his back-browsing ocean-calves; or, hapmen we! ly, in a cove Strike in, strike in!—the sparks begin to dull Shell-strown, and consecrate of old to some Undine's love, their rustling red; Our hammers ring with sharper din-our To find the long-haired mermaidens; or, hard work will soon be sped; by icy lands, Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery To wrestle with the sea-serpent, upon ceru rich array For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay; Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen here For the yeo-heave-o, and the heave-away, and the sighing seamen's cheerWhen, weighing slow, at eve they go, far, far from love and home; And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean foam. In livid and obdurate gloom, he darkens down at last; A shapely one he is, and strong, as e'er from cat was cast. O trusted and trustworthy guard! if thou hadst life like me, What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep green sea! O deep sea-diver, who might then behold such sights as thou? The hoary monster's palaces! - Methinks what joy 't were now To go plumb-plunging down, amid the assembly of the whales, And feel the churned sea round me boil be neath their scourging tails! lean sands. O broad-armed fisher of the deep! whose sports can equal thine? The dolphin weighs a thousand tons, that tugs thy cable line; And night by night 't is thy delight, thy glory day by day, Through sable sea and breaker white the giant game to play. But, shamer of our little sports! forgive the name I gave: A fisher's joy is to destroy-thine office is to save. O lodger in the sea-kings' halls! couldst thou but understand Whose be the white bones by thy side-or who that dripping band, Slow swaying in the heaving wave, that round about thee bend, With sounds like breakers in a dream blessing their ancient friend O, couldst thou know what heroes glide with larger steps round thee, Thine iron side would swell with pridethou 'dst leap within the sea! pleasant strand Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fierce | Give honor to their memories who left the sea-unicorn, And send him foiled and bellowing back, for To shed their blood so freely for the love of all his ivory horn; father-land To leave the subtle sworder-fish of bony blade Who left their chance of quiet age and grassy forlorn; churchyard grave And for the ghastly-grinning shark, to laugh So freely, for a restless bed amid the tossing wave! To leap down on the kraken's back, where O, though our anchor may not be all I have his jaws to scorn; 'mid Norwegian isles lowed miles fondly sung, He lies, a lubber anchorage for sudden shal- Honor him for their memory whose bones he Till, snorting like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls; Meanwhile to swing, a-buffeting the far astonished shoals goes among! SAMUEL FERGUSON. "They say it was a shocking sight After the field was won For many thousand bodies here Lay rotting in the sun; THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD. THIS is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, But things like that, you know, must be But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing X. "Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won, ΧΙ. "And everybody praised the Duke, ROBERT SOUTHEY. VICTORIOUS MEN OF EARTH. VICTORIOUS men of earth, no more Startles the villages with strange alarms. Ah! what a sound will rise-how wild and dreary When the death-angel touches those swift What loud lament and dismal Miserere I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus- In long reverberations reach our own. On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer; Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song; And loud, amid the universal clamor, O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong. I hear the Florentine, who from his palace din; And Aztec priests upon their teocallis Beat the wild war-drums made of serpents' skin; |