 | The Writings of Bret Harte |  |
SONG OF THE “CAMANCHE”
O stranger, o'er this sunken wreck
Behold no risen glory;
No fragments of a battle-deck
Invite the poet's story;
Fame cannot write my name above
With Freedom's fearless fighters;
For why? this little lay of mine
Belongs to Underwriters.
Behold no risen glory;
No fragments of a battle-deck
Invite the poet's story;
Fame cannot write my name above
With Freedom's fearless fighters;
For why? this little lay of mine
Belongs to Underwriters.
You tell me that by Sumter's walls
The monitors are swinging,
And harmless from their armor falls
The thunderbolts yet ringing;
Yet, peaceful here in mud I lie
Like any sailor drunken,
Dead as a coffin-nail, or as
—My rivet-heads-die-sunken!
The monitors are swinging,
And harmless from their armor falls
The thunderbolts yet ringing;
Yet, peaceful here in mud I lie
Like any sailor drunken,
Dead as a coffin-nail, or as
—My rivet-heads-die-sunken!
You say the pirate's stealthy prow
This way is slowly turning,
From tropic seas, where even now
Some luckless prize is burning.
Above them gleams the Southern Cross
And constellations blinking,
While I beneath a Northern sky
With Aquila am sinking.
This way is slowly turning,
From tropic seas, where even now
Some luckless prize is burning.
364
And constellations blinking,
While I beneath a Northern sky
With Aquila am sinking.
O, had I dropped in some deep well
Of ocean vast and mighty,
Old Neptune might have tolled my bell
Along with Amphitrite;
Or mermaids from their coral stores
Have decked my turret gayly,
Instead of filth your city pours
From sewers round me daily.
Of ocean vast and mighty,
Old Neptune might have tolled my bell
Along with Amphitrite;
Or mermaids from their coral stores
Have decked my turret gayly,
Instead of filth your city pours
From sewers round me daily.
Then, stranger, rather let me hide
Where river ooze still smothers,
If locked in my disgrace abide
Some meaner faults of others!
Thou hast a paper—tell me quick
The worst—though nothing worse is;
I'm libeled—in the Circuit Court,
Thank God!—and not in verses.
Where river ooze still smothers,
If locked in my disgrace abide
Some meaner faults of others!
Thou hast a paper—tell me quick
The worst—though nothing worse is;
I'm libeled—in the Circuit Court,
Thank God!—and not in verses.
| The Writings of Bret Harte | |