William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.
The Death of Capt. N. BiddleW
What clouds of smoke in columns rise,
What means this dreadful roar?
Is from his base Vesuvius thrown,
Is sky-topp’d Atlas tumbled down,
Or Etna’s self no more?
And, lo! two hostile ships appear—
Red lightnings round them glow:
The Yarmouth boasts of sixty-four,
The Randolph thirty-two—no more—
And will she fight this foe!
Shall coast along the land of dreams,
The islands of the dead:
But Fate, that parts them on the deep,
May save the Briton, yet, to weep
His days of victory fled.
Where yonder starry streamer plays?
Does Mars with Jove engage?
’Tis Biddle wings those angry fires,
Biddle, whose bosom Jove inspires
With more than mortal rage.
Drives through old Yarmouth—flames and all:
Her bravest sons expire:
Did Mars himself approach so nigh,
Even Mars, without disgrace, might fly
The Randolph’s fiercer fire.
“And shall we strike to ‘thirty-two?’”
Said Hector, stain’d with gore:
“Shall Britain’s flag to these descend?
Rise, and the glorious conflict end:
Britons! I ask no more!”
Again the vaulted heavens resound;
The Randolph bore it all,
Then fixed her pointed cannons true:
Away the unwieldy vengeance flew—
Britain, thy warriors fall.
Her wounded hull—shrouds shot away—
Her boldest heroes dead:
She saw, amidst her floating slain,
The conquering Randolph stem the main—
She saw, she turn’d, and fled!
Dear Biddle, had the powers divine
Been kind as thou wert brave:
But Fate, who doom’d thee to expire,
Prepared an arrow, tipp’d with fire,
And mark’d a watery grave;
Wing’d at his ship a pointed flame,
That not even he could shun.
The battle ceased, the Yarmouth fled,
The bursting Randolph ruin spread,
And left her task undone!