StoryTitle("caps", "The Lost War-Sloop") ?>
SubTitle("caps", "(\"The Wasp,\" 1814)") ?>
PoemStart() ?>
PagePoem(60, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "O, the pride of Portsmouth water,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Toast of every brimming beaker,—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Eighteen hundred and fourteen on land and sea—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Was the \"Wasp,\" the gallant war-sloop,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Built of oaks Kearsarge had guarded,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Pines of Maine to lift her colors high and free!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Every timber scorning cowards:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Every port alert for foemen", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "From the masthead seen on weather-side or lee;—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With eleven guns to starboard,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And eleven guns to larboard,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "All for glory on a morn of May sailed she.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "British ships were in the offing;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Swift and light she sped between them,—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Well her daring crew knew shoal and wind and tide;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "They had come from Portsmouth river,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Sea-girt Marblehead and Salem,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Bays and islands where the fisher-folk abide;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Come for love of home and country,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Come with wrongs that cried for vengeance,—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Every man among them brave and true and tried.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Hearts of oak\" are British seamen?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Hearts of fire were these their kindred,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Flaming till the haughty foe should be descried!", "") ?>
PagePoem(61, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "From the mountains, from the prairies", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Blew the west winds glad to waft her;—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ah, what goodly ships before her guns went down!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ships with wealth of London laden,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ships with treasures of the Indies,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Till her name brought fear to British wharf and town;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Till the war-sloops \"Reindeer,\" \"Avon,\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To her valor struck their colors,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Making coast and ocean ring with her renown;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "While her captain cried exultant,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Britain, to the bold Republic,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of the empire of the seas shall yield the crown!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Oh, the woeful, woeful ending", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of the pride of Portsmouth's water!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Never more to harbor or to shore came she?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Springs returned but brought no tidings;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Mothers, maidens broken-hearted", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Wept the gallant lads that sailed away in glee.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Did the bolts of heaven blast her?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Did the hurricanes o'erwhelm her", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With her starry banner and her tall masts three?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Was a pirate fleet her captor?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Did she drift to polar oceans?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Who shall tell the awful secret of the sea?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Who shall tell? yet many a sailor", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In his watch at dawn or midnight,", "") ?>
PagePoem(62, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "When the wind is wildest and the black waves moan,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Sees a staunch three-master looming;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Hears the hurried calls to quarters,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The drum's quick beat and the bugle fiercely blown;—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then the cannon's direful thunder", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Echoes far along the billows;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then the victor's shout for the foe overthrown;—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the watcher knows the phantom", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Is the \"Wasp,\" the gallant war-sloop,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Still a rover of the seas and glory's own!", "") ?>
PoemAttribution("100", SmallCapsText("—Edna Dean Proctor.")) ?>
PoemEnd() ?>