COMMEMORATIVE OF A NAVAL VICTORY (Herman Melville)

Sailors there are of gentlest breed,
   Yet strong, like every goodly thing;
The discipline of arms refines,
   And the waves give 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 fore 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 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 spirits which glad had
hailed his worth, sleep in oblivion--The shark
Glides white through the phosphorous sea



Herman Melville