The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865. Various
the death-dealing shreds and shards
Of our shell were tearing 'em all to pieces!
Hurrah for the brave old Flag!
To triumph see her ride!—
Ha, ha! they dodge and duck,—
The Snake's expiring!
Their gunners run and hide,—
By heaven, they've struck!
Down comes the rattlesnake rag
By the run,—
Stop the firing!
The work is done!—
Anyhow, she'll do for batter!—
You see now, Butternuts, you were plucky;
But that ain't "what's the matter,"—
Not by a long shot!
No, no,—no! I'll tell you what—
And you mustn't take it at all amiss—
I'll tell you what the matter is:
'Tain't because you were born unlucky,
(Bear in mind,)
Nor that you've good eyes and we are blind,—
Nothing of the kind,—
But it's something else, if it isn't more:
The reason—pardon!—you had to cotton
Was simply this: Your Cause was rotten,—
Rotten to the very core:
That's what's the matter!
But you ought to 'a' heard our water-dogs yelp!—
Just an hour and fifteen minutes!—
(Twitter away, you English linnets!)
Horizontal and perpendicular,
Fair and square, without any help,—
That is, any in particular,—
The old ferry wash-tubs of the West,
With some new-fashioned hoops, for a little test,
And a few old pounders from—Kingdom Come,
And nothing for suds but the "Nawth'n scum,"
Made these "gen'l'men" turn as white
As a head o' hair in a single night!
Cleaned their army completely out,
(We're going to give that another wipe!)
On the double-quick, by the shortest route,—
Wrung their stronghold from their gripe,—
Brought their garrison right to taw,
And made 'em get down to the "higher law"!
So that when Grant and his boys came up,
(There's places enough for a man to die!)
Swearing that we had "spoiled" their "sport,"
With a quiet twinkle in his eye,
Old Boss asked 'em to come in and sup,
And set 'em to house-keeping in the Fort!—
But all the old fellow could say or do,
They'd still keep a-going it: "Bully for you!"
"Bully" for Grant and for Foote!—
E'en if the voice must tremble,—
And "bully" for all who helped 'em to do 't!
Bully for Porter and Stemble!
For Paulding and for Walke,—
For Phelps, for Gwin, and for Shirk!—
But what's the use to talk?
They were all of 'em up to the work!
Bully for each brave tub
That bore the Union Blue!
And for every mother's son
Of every gallant crew,
Whatever his color or name,
Who, when it came to the rub,
Shall be found to have been game!
Such was the Rhyme of the Master's Mate,
Just as they found it in the locker,
With this at the foot:—
"It's getting late,
And I hear a pretty loud Knock at the knocker!
Captain, if I should chance to fall,
Try to send me home. Good bye!" That's all,—
Excepting the date, the name, and rank:—
"Feb. 12th, '62, – –,
Master's Mate."
All next day a great black Cloud
Hung over the land from coast to coast;
And the next, the Knocking was "pretty loud,"—
With a sudden Eclipse, as it were, of the sun,—
And the earth, all day, quaked—"Donelson!"
But the next was the deadliest day of all,
And the Master's Mate was not at Call!
Yet nobody seemed to wonder why,—
There was something, perhaps, the Master knew
Far better than we, for his Mate to do,—
And the Day went down with a bloody sky!
But when the long, long Night was past,
And our Eagle, sweeping the traitor's crag,
Circled to victory up the dome,
The great Reveille was heard at last!—
They wrapped the Mate in his country's flag,
And sent him in glory home!
THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE IN LIBRARIES
A visible library is a goodly sight. We do not underrate the external value of books, when we say it is the invisible which forms their chief charm. Sometimes rather too much is said about "tall copies," and "large-paper copies," and "first editions," the binding, paper, type, and all the rest of the outside attraction, or the fancy price, which go to make up the collector's trade. The books themselves feel a little degraded, when this sort of conversation is carried on in their presence: some of them know well enough that occasionally they fall into hands which think more "of the coat than of the man who is under it." We must, however, be honest enough to confess that we are ourself a bibliomaniac, and few possessions are more valued than an old manuscript, written on vellum some five hundred years ago, of which we cannot read one word. Nor do we prize less the modern extreme of external attraction,—volumes exquisitely printed and adorned, bound by Rivière, in full tree-marbled calf, with delicate tooling on the back, which looks as if the frost-work from the window-pane on a cold January morning had been transmuted into gold, and laid on the leather. Ah, these are sights fit for the gods!
Nevertheless, we come back to our starting-point, that what is unseen forms the real value of the library. The type, the paper, the binding, the age, are all visible; but the soul that conceived it, the mind that arranged it, the hand that wrote it, the associations which cling to it, are the invisible links in a long chain of thought, effort, and history, which make the book what it is.
In wandering through the great libraries of Europe, how often has this truth been impressed upon the mind!—such a library as that in the old city of Nuremberg, housed