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(Supposed to
have been suggested to an Englishman
of the old order
by the fight of the Monitor and Merrimac)
The gloomy
hulls, in armour grim,
Like clouds o'er moors have
met,
And prove that oak, and iron, and man
Are
tough in fibre yet.
But Splendours wane. The
sea-fight yields
No front of old display;
The
garniture, emblazonment,
And heraldry decay.
Towering afar in parting light,
The fleets like
Albion's forelands shine -
The full-sailed fleets,
the shrouded show
Of Ships-of-the-Line.
The
fighting Temeraire,
Built of a thousand trees,
Lunging out her lightnings,
And beetling o'er the
seas -
O Ship, how brave and fair,
That fought so
oft and well,
On open decks you manned the gun
Armorial.
What cheerings did you share,
Impulsive
in the van,
When down upon leagued France and Spain
We English ran -
The freshet at your bowsprit
Like the foam upon the can.
Bickering, your colours
Licked up the Spanish air,
You flapped with flames of
battle-flags -
Your challenge, Temeraire!
The
rear ones of our fleet
They yearned to share your
place,
Still vying with the Victory
Throughout
that earnest race -
The Victory, whose Admiral,
With orders nobly won,
Shone in the globe of the
battle glow -
The angel in that sun.
Parallel in
story,
Lo, the stately pair,
As late in grapple
ranging,
The foe between them there -
When four
great hulls lay tiered,
And the fiery tempest
cleared,
And your prizes twain appeared,
Temeraire!
But Trafalgar is over now,
The quarterdeck undone;
The carved and castled navies fire
Their evening gun.
O, Titan Temeraire,
Your stern-lights fade away;
Your bulwarks to the years must yield,
And
heart-of-oak decay.
A pigmy steam-tug tows you,
Gigantic to the shore -
Dismantled of your guns and
spars,
And sweeping wings of war.
The rivets
clinch the ironclads,
Men learn a deadlier lore;
But Fame has nailed your battle-flags -
Your ghost
it sails before:
O, navies old and oaken,
O,
Temeraire no more!
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