Off Scarborough

I     Have a care! the bailiffs cried     From their cockleshell that lay     Off the frigates yellow side,     Tossing on Scarborough Bay,     While the forty sail it convoyed on a bowline stretched away.     Take your chicks beneath your wings,     And your claws and feathers spread,     Ere the hawk upon them springs,     Ere around Flamborough Head     Swoops Paul Jones, the Yankee falcon, with his beak and talons red. II     How we laughed! my mate and I,     On the Bon Homme Richards deck,     As we saw that convoy fly     Like a snow-squall, till each fleck     Melted in the twilight shadows of the coast-line, speck by speck;     And scuffling back to shore     The Scarborough bailiffs sped,     As the Richard with a roar     Of her cannon round the Head,     Crossed her royal yards and signaled to her consort: Chase ahead III     But the devil seize Landais     In that consort ship of France!     For the shabby, lubber way     That he worked the Alliance     In the offing, nor a broadside fired save to our mischance!     When tumbling to the van,     With his battle-lanterns set,     Rose the burly Englishman     Gainst our hull as black as jet,     Rode the yellow-sided Serapis, and all alone we met! IV     All alone, though far at sea     Hung his consort, rounding to;     All alone, though on our lee     Fought our Pallas, stanch and true!     For the first broadside around us both a smoky circle drew:     And, like champions in a ring,     There was cleared a little space     Scarce a cables length to swing     Ere we grappled in embrace,     All the world shut out around us, and we only face to face! V     Then awoke all hell below     From that broadside, doubly curst,     For our long eighteens in row     Leaped the first discharge and burst!     And on deck our men came pouring, fearing their own guns the worst.     And as dumb we lay, till, through     Smoke and flame and bitter cry,     Hailed the Serapis: Have you     Struck your colors? Our reply,     We have not yet begun to fight! went shouting to the sky! VI     Roux of Brest, old fisher, lay     Like a herring gasping here;     Bunker of Nantucket Bay,     Blown from out the port, dropped sheer     Half a cables length to leeward; yet we faintly raised a cheer     As with his own right hand     Our Commodore made fast     The foemans head-gear and     The Richards mizzen-mast,     And in that death-lock clinging held us there from first to last! VII     Yet the foeman, gun on gun,     Through the Richard tore a road,     With his gunners rammers run     Through our ports at every load,     Till clear the blue beyond us through our yawning timbers showed.     Yet with entrails torn we clung     Like the Spartan to our fox,     And on deck no coward tongue     Wailed the enemys hard knocks,     Nor that all below us trembled like a wreck upon the rocks. VIII     Then a thought rose in my brain,     As through Channel mists the sun.     From our tops a fire like rain     Drove below decks every one     Of the enemys ships company to hide or work a gun:     And that thought took shape as I     On the Richard6;s yard lay out,     That a man might do and die,     If the doing brought about     Freedom for his home and country, and his messmates cheering shout! IX     Then I crept out in the dark     Till I hung above the hatch     Of the Serapis, a mark     For her marksmen! with a match     And a hand-grenade, but lingered just a moment more to snatch     One last look at sea and sky!     At the lighthouse on the hill!     At the harvest-moon on high!     And our pine flag fluttering still!     Then turned and down her yawning throat I launched that devils pill! X     Then a blank was all between     As the flames around me spun!     Had I fired the magazine?     Was the victory lost or won?     Nor knew I till the fight was oer but half my work was done:     For I lay among the dead     In the cockpit of our foe,     With a roar above my head,     Till a trampling to and fro,     And a lantern showed my mates face, and I knew what now you know!