The Victory.

    Hark--how the church-bells thundering harmony
    Stuns the glad ear! tidings of joy have come,
    Good tidings of great joy! two gallant ships
    Met on the element,--they met, they fought
    A desperate fight!--good tidings of great joy!
    Old England triumphed! yet another day
    Of glory for the ruler of the waves!
    For those who fell, 'twas in their country's cause,
    They have their passing paragraphs of praise
    And are forgotten.
    There was one who died
    In that day's glory, whose obscurer name
    No proud historian's page will chronicle.
    Peace to his honest soul! I read his name,
    'Twas in the list of slaughter, and blest God
    The sound was not familiar to mine ear.
    But it was told me after that this man
    Was one whom lawful violence [1] had forced
    From his own home and wife and little ones,
    Who by his labour lived; that he was one
    Whose uncorrupted heart could keenly feel
    A husband's love, a father's anxiousness,
    That from the wages of his toil he fed
    The distant dear ones, and would talk of them
    At midnight when he trod the silent deck
    With him he valued, talk of them, of joys
    That he had known--oh God! and of the hour
    When they should meet again, till his full heart
    His manly heart at last would overflow
    Even like a child's with very tenderness.
    Peace to his honest spirit! suddenly
    It came, and merciful the ball of death,
    For it came suddenly and shattered him,
    And left no moment's agonizing thought
    On those he loved so well.
                He ocean deep
    Now lies at rest. Be Thou her comforter
    Who art the widow's friend! Man does not know
    What a cold sickness made her blood run back
    When first she heard the tidings of the fight;
    Man does not know with what a dreadful hope
    She listened to the names of those who died,
    Man does not know, or knowing will not heed,
    With what an agony of tenderness
    She gazed upon her children, and beheld
    His image who was gone. Oh God! be thou
    Her comforter who art the widow's friend!