Herman Melville Poems

Armies he's seen--the herds of war,
But never such swarms of men
As now in the Nineveh of the North--
How mad the Rebellion then!
...

Beauty and youth, with manners sweet, and
friends--
Gold, yet a mind not unenriched had he
Whom here low violets veil from eyes.
...

Shoe the steed with silver
That bore him to the fray,
When he heard the guns at dawning-
...

In shards the sylvan vases lie,
Their links of dance undone,
And brambles wither by thy brim,
Choked fountain of the sun!
...

I
Though the Clerk of the Weather insist,
And lay down the weather-law,
Pintado and gannet they wist
...

Look, the raft, a signal flying,
Thin--a shred;
None upon the lashed spars lying,
Quick or dead.
...

Ay, man is manly. Here you see
The warrior-carriage of the head,
And brave dilation of the frame;
...

The gloomy hulls in armor grim,
Like clouds o'er moors have met,
And prove that oak, and iron, and man
Are tough in fibre yet.
...

Youth is the time when hearts are large,
And stirring wars
Appeal to the spirit which appeals in turn
To the blade it draws.
...

To have known him, to have loved him
After loneness long;
And then to be estranged in life,
And neither in the wrong;
...