John Marr and Other Poems. Herman Melville
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CHATTANOOGA
ON THE PHOTOGRAPH OF A CORPS COMMANDER
ON THE GRAVE OF A YOUNG CAVALRY OFFICER
KILLED IN THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA
COMMEMORATIVE OF A NAVAL VICTORY
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Melville's verse printed for the most part privately in small editions from middle life onward after his great prose work had been written, taken as a whole, is of an amateurish and uneven quality. In it, however, that loveable freshness of personality, which his philosophical dejection never quenched, is everywhere in evidence. It is clear that he did not set himself to master the poet's art, yet through the mask of conventional verse which often falls into doggerel, the voice of a true poet is heard. In selecting the pieces for this volume I have put in the vigorous sea verses of John Marr in their entirety and added those others from his Battle Pieces, Timoleon, etc., that best indicate the quality of their author's personality. The prose supplement to battle pieces has been included because it does so much to explain the feeling of his war verse and further because it is such a remarkably wise and clear commentary upon those confused and troublous days of post-war reconstruction. H. C.
JOHN MARR AND OTHER SAILORS
JOHN MARR AND OTHER SAILORS
Since as in night's deck-watch ye show,
Why, lads, so silent here to me,
Your watchmate of times long ago?
Once, for all the darkling sea,
You your voices raised how clearly,
Striking in when tempest sung;
Hoisting up the storm-sail cheerly,
Life is storm—let storm! you rung. Taking things as fated merely, Childlike though the world ye spanned; Nor holding unto life too dearly, Ye who held your lives in hand— Skimmers, who on oceans four Petrels were, and larks ashore. O, not from memory lightly flung, Forgot, like strains no more availing, The heart to music haughtier strung; Nay, frequent near me, never staleing, Whose good feeling kept ye young. Like tides that enter creek or stream, Ye come, ye visit me, or seem Swimming out from seas of faces, Alien myriads memory traces, To enfold me in a dream! I yearn as ye. But rafts that strain, Parted, shall they lock again? Twined we were, entwined, then riven, Ever to new embracements driven, Shifting gulf-weed of the main! And how if one here shift no more, Lodged by the flinging surge ashore? Nor less, as now, in eve's decline, Your shadowy fellowship is mine. Ye float around me, form and feature:— Tattooings, ear-rings, love-locks curled; Barbarians of man's simpler nature, Unworldly servers of the world. Yea, present all, and dear to me, Though shades, or scouring China's sea. Whither, whither, merchant-sailors, Whitherward now in roaring gales? Competing still, ye huntsman-whalers, In leviathan's wake what boat prevails? And man-of-war's men, whereaway? If now no dinned drum beat to quarters On the wilds of midnight waters— Foemen looming through the spray; Do yet your gangway lanterns, streaming, Vainly strive to pierce below, When, tilted from the slant plank gleaming, A brother you see to darkness go? But, gunmates lashed in shotted canvas, If where long watch-below ye keep, Never the shrill "All hands up hammocks!" Breaks the spell that