The Frigate-Ghost

Yes, you may build her again As she was when she sailed the sea; She may bear the brave old name, And the harbors hail her the same; ’Tis her semblance, it is not she! She is gone from our mortal ken.

I know not how or when, But her spirit escaped away From the dock and the dull decay, From the uses of unprized age And the changes wrought of men; Like a wild sea-bird from a cage, Her soul took flight from the form To the tides that none can tame, To the restless fields of her fame, To the wet salt wind and the storm!

Somewhere she ranges free, Stately, a shape of light, Revisiting leagues of sea Illumined with glorious fight. She hangs like a lucent cloud On the coast where her guns spoke loud, In the gates of the Moslem proud, Till the Crescent grew faint with fright. Exultant she bounds on the brine, Tracing the course of the race When the Æolus held her in chase, And the Belvidere and the Shannon, And the Africa, ship-o’-the-line, With another, doomed to her cannon, To be blazoned in flame at the last, When the grim sea-duel was done: God rest the souls that passed Ere the Guerrière’s leeward gun! Ere the noblest flag on the sea Came down to the Stripes and Stars! Oh, the frigate-ghost, as she ranges free, Thrills yet through her spectral spars!

Aye, the old pride stirs her still As she sails and sails at will; In her cross-trees memories nestle, Though she walks the wave a ghost. Well she minds the wary wrestle When her shot poured hot as lava On the shattered, stubborn Java, Off the dim Brazilian coast; And she haunts the moonlit seas Where her crashing broadsides broke Through the drift of silvered smoke While she waged a double battle In the waters Portuguese. Still the ghostly muskets rattle, And the old drums beat, beat, beat, Like a heart that will not die; And the old fife whistles high, And the powder-scent is rank, And she feels on her hollow plank The old, dead heroes’ feet!

Ah, never sailor-man Has seen her where she ranges, Escaped from time and changes As only spirits can, Clear, absolute, and free! Yet, some stern hour to be, When a fight is fought at sea, And the right of the fight is ours, And the cause of the right is failing, There shall rise a frigate sailing, A luminous presence paling Through the powder-cloud where it lowers; Pale smoke from her side shall break, Pale faces over her railing Shall frown, till the foemen shake With fear and bewildered passion, Marking her old-time fashion, In the turrets of hostile powers; And then shall the rumor run Like a lightning from lip to lip, And shall leap from ship to ship, While the wounded gunner reels Again to his reeking gun, Touched with a magic that heals, Feeling this vision remind him That the strong Dead fight behind him: “’Tis the ghost of IRONSIDES, Come back from the tameless tides, From the ocean-fields unbounded, Complete with her scattered spars, Manned with the shades of her tars, With the smoke of her guns surrounded, To succor the Stripes and Stars!”