1¢09.] 
Dreads the tremendous task, to graze but shun 
The tender temples of his infant son ; 
As the loved youth (the tyrant’s victim led) 
Bears the poised apple tottering on bis head. 
The sullen father, with reverted eye, 
Now marks the satrap, now the bright-hair’d 
boy 5 
His second shaft impatient lies, athirst 
To mend the expected error of the first, 
To pierce the monster, mid the insulted crowd, 
And steep the pangs of nature in his blood. 
Deep doubling tow’rd his breast, well poised 
and slow, 
Curve the strain’d horns of his indignant bow; 
His left arm straightens as the dexter bends, 
And his nerved knuckle with the gripe dis- 
tends ; 
Soft slides the reed back with the stift-drawn 
strand, 
Till the steel point has reacht his steady 
hand ; 
Then to his keen fixt eye the shank he brings, 
>Twangs the loud cord, the feather’d arrow 
sings, 
Picks off the pippin from the smiling boy, 
And Uri’s rocks resound with shouts of joy, 
‘Soon by an equal dart the tyrant bleeds, 
The cantons league, the work of fate pro- 
ceeds 3 
Till Austria’s titled hordes, with their own 
gore, 
Fat the fair fields they lorded long before ; 
On Gothard’s height while Freedom first un- 
furl’d 
Her infant banner o’er the modern world.” 
Among all the naval victories that Bri- 
tain has to boast, it is singular that we 
have no description of a naval battle in 
English poetry, nor is there such a thing 
among the moderns of any nation, so far 
as I am acquainted with their litera- 
ture. We are therefore indebted to the 
American poet for the first poetical de- 
‘scription of a combat of this sort, and 
that too on an occasion sufficiently rare, 
if not unique, in which the English did 
not gain the victory. It is the battle of 
Graves and Degrasse, in which the latter 
obtained, if not a victory, at least his ob- 
ject ; which was to take possession of the 
Chessapeak bay, and protect the opera- 
ttons of the siege of York, and the re- 
duction of Cornwallis. The description 
I think equal to the occasion. 
' €¢ Fax on the wild expanse,where ocean lies, 
And scorns all confines but incumbent skies, 
Scorns to retain the imprinted patos.of men 
To guide their wanderings or direct their ken; 
Where warring vagrants, raging as they go, 
Ask of the stars their way to find the foe; 
Columbus saw two hovering fleets advance, 
And rival ensigns o’er their pinions dance. 
Graves, on the north, with Albion’s flag un~ 
furl’d, 
Waves proud defiance to the watery world; 
Observations on the Columbiud. 
519 
Degrasse, ftom southern isles, conducts his 
train, 
And shades with Gallic sheets the moving 
main. 
*€ Now Morn, unconsciouswf the coming 
fray 
That soon shall storm the crystal cope of day, 
Glows o’er the heavens, and with her orient 
breeze ; 
Fans her fair face and curls the summer seas. 
The swelling sails, as far as eye can sweep, 
Look through the skies and awe the shadowy 
deep, 
Lead their long-bending lines; and, ere they 
close, 
To count, recognize, circumvent their foes, 
Each hauls his wind, the weathergage to gain 
And master all the movements of the plain; 
Or bears before the breeze with loftier gait, 
And, beam to beam, begins the work of fate, 
‘© As when the warring winds, from each 
far pole, 
Their adverse storms across the concave roll, 
Thin fleecy vapours thro’ the expansion run, 
Veil the blue vault and tremble o’er the sun, 
Till the dark folding wings together drive, 
And, ridged with fire and rocked with thunder, 
strive 5 
So, hazing thro the void, at first appear 
White clouds of canvas floating on the airy 
Then frown the broad black decks, the sails are 
stayed, 
The gaping portholes cast a frightful shade, 
Flames, triple tier’d, and tides of smoke, arise, 
And fulminations rock the seas and skies 
**From van to rear the roaring deluge runs, 
The storm disgorging froma thousand gunsy 
Each like a vast volcano spouting wide 
His hissing hell-dogs o’er the shuddering tide, 
Whirls high his chainshot, cleaves the mast 
and strows 
The shiver’d fragments on the staggering foes; 
Whose gunwale sides with iron globes are 
gored, 
And a wild storm of splinters sweeps the board. 
Husht are the winds of heaven; no more the 
gale 
Breaks the red rolls of smoke nor flaps the sail 
A dark dead calm continuous cloaks the glare, 
And helds the clouds of sulphur on the war, 
Convolving o’er the space that yawns and 
shines, 
With frequent flash, between the laboring 
lines. 
Nor sun nor sea nor skyborn lightning gleams, 
But flaming Phlegethon’s asphaltic steams 
Streak the long gaping gulph ; where varying 
glow 
Carbonic curls above, blue flakes of fire below, 
«« Hither two hostile ships to contact run, ' 
Both grappling, boara to board, and gun to gun; 
Each thro the adverse ports their contents pour, 
Rake the low decks, the interior timbers 
bore, 
Drive into chinks the illumined wads uns-en, 
Whose flames approach the unguarded maya- 
Zine, 
Above 
