WHAT are you waiting for, George, I pray?
To scour your cross-belts with fresh pipe-clay ?
To burnish your buttons, to brighten your guns;
Or wait you for May-day and warm-spring suns?
Are you blowing your fingers because they are cold,
Or catching your breath ere you take a hold?
Is the mud knee-deep in valley and gorge?
What are you waiting for, tardy George?
Want you a thousand more cannon made,
To add to the thousand now arrayed?
Want you more men, more money to pay?
Are not two millions enough per day?
Wait you for gold and credit to go,
Before we shall see your martial show;
Till Treasury Notes will not pay to forge?
What are you waiting for, tardy George?
Are you waiting for your hair to turn,
Your heart to soften, your bowels to yearn
A little more toward "our Southern friends,"
As at home and abroad they work their ends?
"Our Southern friends!" whom you hold so dear
That you do no harm and give no fear,
As you tenderly take them by the gorge,
What are you waiting for, tardy George?
Now that you've marshalled your whole command, Planned what you would, and changed what you planned; Practised with shot and practised with shell,
Know to a hair where every one fell,
Made signs by day and signals by night;
Was it all done to keep out of a fight?
Is the whole matter too heavy a charge?
What are you waiting for, tardy George?
Shall we have more speeches, more reviews?
Or are you waiting to hear the news;
To hold up your hands in mute surprise,
When France and England shall "recognize"?
Are you too grand to fight traitors small?
Must you have a nation to cope withal ?
Well, hammer the anvil and blow the forge,
You'll soon have a dozen, tardy George.
Suppose for a moment, George, my friend,
Just for a moment,
- you condescend
To use the means that are in your hands,
The eager muskets and guns and brands;
Take one bold step on the Southern sod,
And leave the issue to watchful God!
For now the nation raises its gorge,
Waiting and watching you, tardy George.
I should not much wonder, George, my boy,
If Stanton get in his head a toy,
And some fine morning, ere you are out,
He send you all "to the right about," -
You and Jomini, and all the crew
Who think that war is nothing to do
But to drill and cipher, and hammer and forge,
What are you waiting for, tardy George?
AT anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,
On board the Cumberland sloop-of-war,
And at times from the fortress across the bay
The alarm of drums swept past,
Or a bugle-blast
From the camp on shore.
Then far away to the South uprose
A little feather of snow-white smoke,
And we knew that the iron ship of our foes
Was steadily steering its course
To try the force
Of our ribs of oak.
Down upon us heavily runs,
Silent and sullen, the floating fort;
Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns,
And leaps the terrrible death,
With fiery breath,
From each open port.
We are not idle, but send her straight
Defiance back in a full broadside!
As hail rebounds from a roof of slate,
Rebounds our heavier hail
From each iron scale
Of the monster's hide.
*Sunk by the iron-clad ram Merrimac in Hampton Roads, Saturday, March 8, 1862, going down with her colors flying, and firing upon her impenetrable assailant as the water rose above her own gun-deck.
"Strike your flag!" the rebel cries,
In his arrogant old plantation strain. "Never!" our gallant Morris replies; "It is better to sink than to yield!" And the whole air pealed With the cheers of our men.
Then, like a kraken huge and black,
She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp !
Down went the Cumberland all a-wrack,
With a sudden shudder of death,
And the cannon's breath
Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay,
Still floated our flag at the mainmast-head.
Lord, how beautiful was Thy day!
Every waft of the air
Was a whisper of prayer,
Or a dirge for the dead.
Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas,
Ye are at peace in the troubled stream.
Ho! brave land! with hearts like these,
Thy flag, that is rent in twain,
Shall be one again,
And without a seam.
March 8, 1862.
BY GEORGE H. BOKER.
"STAND to your guns, men!" Morris cried. Small need to pass the word;
Our men at quarters ranged themselves,
Before the drum was heard.
And then began the sailors' jests:
"What thing is that, I say?"
"A long-shore meeting-house adrift
Is standing down the bay!"
A frown came over Morris's face; The strange, dark craft he knew; "That is the iron Merrimac,
Manned by a Rebel crew.
"So shot your guns, and point them straight;
Before this day goes by,
We'll try of what her metal's made.”
A cheer was our reply.
"Remember, boys, this flag of ours
Has seldom left its place;
And where it falls, the deck it strikes
Is covered with disgrace.
"I ask but this: or sink or swim,
Or live or nobly die,
My last sight upon earth may be
To see that ensign fly!"
Meanwhile the shapeless iron mass
Came moving o'er the wave,
As gloomy as a passing hearse,
As silent as the grave.
Her ports were closed, from stem to stern
No sign of life appeared.
We wondered, questioned, strained our eyes,
Joked, everything but feared.
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