{"id":"01KG8AK0QKXTJEYDGHK3F3SWNE","cid":"bafkreigyemlcrjcnowez4izc4jncrf4thtrzy5qaueom3qm5omtm3ho5li","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":447,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:50.352Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J19Y3FNVN5KWASY78BP4","start_line":368,"text":"Let us enter that silence ere the belchings re-begin.\r\nThrough a ragged rift aslant in the cannonade’s smoke\r\nAn iron-clad reveals her repellent broadside\r\nBodily intact. But a frigate, all oak,\r\nShows honeycombed by shot, and her deck crimson-dyed.\r\nAnd a trumpet from port of the iron-clad hails,\r\nSummoning the other, whose flag never trails:\r\n“Surrender that frigate, Will! Surrender,\r\nOr I will sink her—_ram_, and end her!”\r\n\r\n’T was Hal. And Will, from the naked heart-o’-oak,\r\nWill, the old messmate, minus trumpet, spoke,\r\nInformally intrepid,—“Sink her, and be damned!”*  [* Historic.]\r\nEnough. Gathering way, the iron-clad _rammed_.\r\nThe frigate, heeling over, on the wave threw a dusk.\r\nNot sharing in the slant, the clapper of her bell\r\nThe fixed metal struck—uinvoked struck the knell\r\nOf the _Cumberland_ stillettoed by the _Merrimac’s_ tusk;\r\nWhile, broken in the wound underneath the gun-deck,\r\nLike a sword-fish’s blade in leviathan waylaid,\r\nThe tusk was left infixed in the fast-foundering wreck.\r\nThere, dungeoned in the cockpit, the wounded go down,\r\nAnd the chaplain with them. But the surges uplift\r\nThe prone dead from deck, and for moment they drift\r\nWashed with the swimmers, and the spent swimmers drown.\r\nNine fathom did she sink,—erect, though hid from light\r\nSave her colors unsurrendered and spars that kept the height.\r\n\r\nNay, pardon, old aunty! Wife, never let it fall,\r\nThat big started tear that hovers on the brim;\r\nI forgot about your nephew and the _Merrimac’s_ ball;\r\nNo more then of her, since it summons up him.\r\nBut talk o’ fellows’ hearts in the wine’s genial cup:—\r\nTrap them in the fate, jam them in the strait,\r\nGuns speak their hearts then, and speak right up.\r\nThe troublous colic o’ intestine war\r\nIt sets the bowels o’ affection ajar.\r\nBut, lord, old dame, so spins the whizzing world,\r\nA humming-top, ay, for the little boy-gods\r\nFlogging it well with their smart little rods,\r\nTittering at time and the coil uncurled.\r\n\r\nNow, now, sweetheart, you sidle away,\r\nNo, never you like _that_ kind o’ _gay;_\r\nBut sour if I get, giving truth her due,\r\nHoney-sweet forever, wife, will Dick be to you!\r\n\r\nBut avast with the War! ‘Why recall racking days\r\nSince set up anew are the slip’s started stays?\r\nNor less, though the gale we have left behind,\r\nWell may the heave o’ the sea remind.\r\nIt irks me now, as it troubled me then,\r\nTo think o’ the fate in the madness o’ men.\r\nIf Dick was with Farragut on the night-river,\r\nWhen the boom-chain we burst in the fire-raft’s glare,\r\nThat blood-dyed the visage as red as the liver;\r\nIn the _Battle for the Bay_ too if Dick had a share,\r\nAnd saw one aloft a-piloting the war—\r\nTrumpet in the whirlwind, a Providence in place—\r\nOur Admiral old whom the captains huzza,\r\nDick joys in the man nor brags about the race.\r\n\r\nBut better, wife, I like to booze on the days\r\nEre the Old Order foundered in these very frays,\r\nAnd tradition was lost and we learned strange ways.\r\nOften I think on the brave cruises then;\r\nRe-sailing them in memory, I hail the press o’ men\r\nOn the gunned promenade where rolling they go,\r\nEre the dog-watch expire and break up the show.\r\nThe Laced Caps I see between forward guns;\r\nAway from the powder-room they puff the cigar;\r\n“Three days more, hey, the donnas and the dons!”\r\n“Your Zeres widow, will you hunt her up, Starr?”\r\nThe Laced Caps laugh, and the bright waves too;\r\nVery jolly, very wicked, both sea and crew,\r\nNor heaven looks sour on either, I guess,\r\nNor Pecksniff he bosses the gods’ high mess.\r\nWistful ye peer, wife, concerned for my head,\r\nAnd how best to get me betimes to my bed.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJF3ZZ701ZA41H31WZBPD","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19Y3FNVN5KWASY78BP4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK0QKKW65MKXC1ATXAR43","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AK0QJG2RYS8W63FSCC3DR","predicate":"similar_to"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:50.515Z","ts":"2026-02-03T20:07:40.303Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KDZS52M5F9XS0ZPZQQXGPC9A"}}