Commemorative Of A Naval Victory

by Herman Melville

　　

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Sailors there are of the gentlest breed, Yet strong, like every goodly thing;The discipline of arms refines, And the wave gives tempering. The damasked blade its beam can fling;It lends the last grave grace:The hawk, the hound, and sworded nobleman In Titian's picture for a king,Are of hunter or warrior race.In social halls a favored guest In years that follow victory won,How sweet to feel your festal fame In woman's glance instinctive thrown: Repose is yours—your deed is known,It musks the amber wine;It lives, and sheds a light from storied days Rich as October sunsets brown,Which make the barren place to shine.But seldom the laurel wreath is seen Unmixed with pensive pansies dark;There's a light and a shadow on every man Who at last attains his lifted mark— Nursing through night the ethereal spark.Elate he never can be;He feels that spirit which glad had hailed his worth, Sleep in oblivion.—The sharkGlides white through the phosphorus sea.

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