James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
June 19The Alabama
By Maurice Bell
S
Now breaks in vain insolence o’er her;
No more the rough seas like a queen shall she ride,
While the foe flies in terror before her!
The forms that so bravely did man her;
Her deck is untrod, and the gale’s stirring breath
Flouts no more the red cross of her banner!
Is in death, as in life, ever glorious,
And a sceptre all barren the conqueror must claim,
Though he boasts the proud title “Victorious.”
Though unequal in strength, bold and fearless;
And proved in her fate, though not matchless in might,
In daring at least she was peerless.
Shall speak of her final disaster,
Nor tell of the danger that could not appall,
Nor the spirit that nothing could master!
But left her destroyer no token,
And the mythical wand of her mystic renown,
Though the waters o’erwhelm, is unbroken.
On her enemies’ cheeks spreads a pallor,
As another deck summons the swords of the brave
To gild a new name with their valor.
Causing foemen to start and to shudder,
While their commerce still steals like a thief o’er the seas,
And trembles from bowsprit to rudder.
The light of a legend romantic
Shall live while a sail flutters over the breast
Of thy far-bounding billows, Atlantic!
Or “poor Jack” loves his song and his story,
Shall shine in tradition the valor of Semmes
And the brave ship that bore him to glory!