Читать книгу Studies in Folk-Song and Popular Poetry - Alfred M. Williams - Страница 6

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'T is of a gallant Yankee ship that flew the stripes and stars,

And the whistling wind from the west-nor'-west blew through

the pitch-pine spars.

With her starboard tacks aboard, my boys, she hung upon the

gale,

On an autumn night we raised the light on the old head of

Kinsale.

It was a clear and cloudless night, and the wind blew steady

and strong,

As gayly over the sparkling deep our good ship bowled

along;

With the foaming seas beneath her bow the fiery waves she

spread,

And bending low her bosom of snow, she buried her lee cat

head.

There was no talk of short'ning sail by him who walked the

poop,

And under the press of her pond'ring jib the boom bent like

a hoop,

And the groaning water-ways told the strain that held her

stout main tack.

But he only laughed as he glanced abaft at a white and sil

very track.

The mid-tide meets in the channel waves that flow from shore

to shore,

And the mist hung heavy upon the land from Featherstone

to Dunmore;

And that sterling light on Tusker rock, where the old bell

tolls the hour,

And the beacon light that shone so bright was quenched on

Waterford tower.

The nightly robes our good ship wore were her three topsails

set,

The spanker and her standing jib, the spanker being fast.

"Now, lay aloft, my heroes bold, let not a moment pass!"

And royals and topgallant sails were quickly on each mast.

What looms upon the starboard bow? What hangs upon

the breeze?

'T is time our good ship hauled her wind abreast the old Sal

tees;

For by her ponderous press of sail and by her consorts four

We saw our morning visitor was a British man-of-war.

Up spoke our noble captain then, as a shot ahead of us

passed,

"Haul snug your flowing courses, lay your topsail to the

mast!"

The Englishmen gave three loud hurrahs from the deck of

their covered ark,

And we answered back by a solid broadside from the decks

of our patriot bark.

"Out, booms! Out, booms!" our skipper cried, "Out,

booms, and give her sheet!"

And the swiftest keel that ever was launched shot ahead of

the British fleet.

And amidst a thundering shower of shot, with stunsails hoist

ing away,

Down the North Channel Paul Jones did steer, just at the

break of day.

The naval war of 1812 was a glorious epoch in American history. The achievements of the troops were very far from creditable, with a few exceptions, including, of course, the great one of the repulse of British regulars at New Orleans; but on the ocean the American sailors proved themselves quite the equal, if not more, of the English seamen, who had learned to consider themselves invincible, and despised the petty fleet of half a dozen cruisers,—not a single line-of-battle ship in the number,—which they had force enough to sweep off the seas without a struggle, and which they finally did blockade into inaction. There was quite an outburst of surprise, incredulity, and indignation in England, when the news came in that British frigates, one after another, the Guerriere, the Java, and the Macedonian, had been captured in singleship fights by American ships of the same grade, and that in contests between vessels of smaller size, like the Wasp and the Frolic, the Hornet and the Peacock, Yankee pluck and seamanship had been equally successful; and British naval historians, then and since, have been earnest in showing that the victories were due to superior weight of metal, to the presence of deserters from the British navy on board the American ships, and to the accidents of naval warfare. Nevertheless, the facts of the captures remained the same, and privateers ravaged the seas, plundering and burning English ships, and causing the most bitter annoyance as well as incalculable loss and damage. To the vindictive depreciation and abuse of the English writers the Americans were not slow to respond, with a joyous outburst of national pride and exultation, and a mighty flapping of the wings of the American eagle; and the poets and song-writers joined in the shrill cock-a-doodle-doo of victory. The country was a great deal more boastful and self-assertive than it has been since it has come to rely on its own strength and has known the achievement of the great and sobering task of the civil war. The spirit of the spread eagle pervaded our national literature; the poets burst into songs,—generally, it must be admitted, very bad,—in which they celebrated the naval victories of the day. They indulged in mythological flights of the highest kind, in which Neptune bestowed a laurel crown upon Hull, Amphitrite smiled upon Bainbridge and Decatur, and the Tritons and the Nereids joined in a chorus of love and admiration for the American sailor. America, Commerce, and Freedom appeared as conjoined goddesses, and everybody was summoned to fill the bumper and pledge the flowing bowl, to thank the mighty Jove and invoke Bacchus, and do all sorts of things entirely unfamiliar to a people whose principal intoxicating beverages were Medford rum and Monongahela whiskey, and who had not the slightest acquaintance with heathen gods and goddesses. It is needless to say that none of these songs were written by sailors, or were ever sung by them, even if they could have been sung by anybody.

There was, however, better stuff than this in the naval songs of the war of 1812. The American sailor himself sometimes cleared his cheek of its quid, and sang in a clear if somewhat nasal voice some of the deeds which he had seen and done. Thus there is a great deal of rude vigor in one of the verses of a song describing the fight between the Constitution and the Guerriere, the first of our naval victories, and a very favorite theme:—

But Jonathan kept cool,

At the roaring of the Bull.

His heart filled with anything but fears;

And squirting out his quid,

As he saw the captain did,

He cleaned out his mouth for three cheers.

Another song on the same engagement, entitled Halifax Station, begins thus:—

From Halifax Station a bully there came,

To take or be taken, called Dacres by name;

And who but a Yankee he met on his way;

Says the Yankee to him, "Will you stop and take tea?"

After giving Dacres's high and mighty address to his crew, and Hull's more modest appeal, it says:—

Then we off with our hats and gave him a cheer,

Swore we'd stick by brave Hull, while a seaman could

steer.

Then at it we went with a mutual delight,

For to fight and to conquer is a seaman's free right.

The poet naturally takes the privilege of presenting the confounded Britisher in the most humiliating light, and the manner in which Captain Dacres signified his surrender is probably more graphic than historically correct:—

Then Dacres looked wild, and then sheathed his sword,

When he found that his masts had all gone by the board.

And, dropping astern, cries out to his steward,

"Come up and be d——d! Fire a gun to leeward!"

This battle, fought in the North Atlantic on August 2, 1812, between the American frigate Constitution, Captain Isaac Hull, and the British frigate Guerriere, Captain James R. Dacres, and one of consummate seamanship as well as fighting capacity on the part of Hull, was the theme of the best and most spirited song of the whole war; one which still keeps its place in the forecastle, and, it may be hoped, will keep it so long as Uncle Sam has a war-ship afloat. It is set to a very lively and emphatic air, called, indifferently, The Landlady of France and The Bandy-Legged Officer, from the coarsely comical words which George Colman the younger had written to it.