GONE down in the flood, and gone out in the flame! What else could she do, with her fair Northern name? Her font was a river whose last drop is free: That river ran boiling with wrath to the sea, To hear of her baptismal blessing profaned; A name that was Freedom's, by treachery stained. 'T was the voice of our free Northern mountains that broke In the sound of her guns, from her stout ribs of oak: 'T was the might of the free Northern hand you could feel In her sweep and her moulding, from topmast to keel: When they made her speak treason (does Hell know of worse?), How her strong timbers shook with the shame of her curse! Let her go! Should a deck so polluted again Ever ring to the tread of our true Northern men? Let the suicide-ship thunder forth, to the air And the sea she has blotted, her groan of despair! Let her last heat of anguish throb out into flame! Then sink them together, -- the ship and the name! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON A VOLUME OF SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY by GEORGE SANTAYANA WIND AND WINDOW FLOWER by ROBERT FROST IN THE WILDERNESS by ROBERT RANKE GRAVES ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD by THOMAS GRAY THE PRIMROSE by ROBERT HERRICK A HOUSE by JOHN COLLINGS SQUIRE IN A GARRET by ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN TEN YEARS HAVE PASSED; ON VIEWING WAR GRAVES AT VERDUN, 1928 by DON MAITLAND BUSHBY |