Poem: “Commemorative Of A Naval Victory” by Herman Melville

Poems From Battle Pieces

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American Literature – American Poetry – Herman Melville – Poems by Herman Melville – Poems From Battle Pieces
< < < On a natural Monument in a Field of Georgia
Presentation to the Authorities by Privates of Colors captured in Battles ending in the Surrender of Lee > > >

Commemorative Of A Naval Victory

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 shark
Glides white through the phosphorus sea.

< < < On a natural Monument in a Field of Georgia
Presentation to the Authorities by Privates of Colors captured in Battles ending in the Surrender of Lee > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – Herman Melville – Poems by Herman Melville – Poems From Battle Pieces

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Poems From Battle Pieces

Commemorative Of A Naval Victory

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