The very air
Was stirring to the march of Destiny.
One blinding second out of endless time
Fell, sundering the night.
I saw the _Housatonic_ hurled,
A ship of light,
Out of a molten sea,
Hang an unending pulse-beat,
Glowing, stark;
While the hot clouds flung back a sullen roar.
Then all her pride, so confident and sure,
Went reeling down the dark.
Out of the blackness wave on livid wave
Leapt into being--thundered to our feet;
Counting the moments for us, beat by beat,
Until the last and smallest dwindled past,
Trailing its pallor like a winding-sheet
Over the last crew and its chosen grave.
IV
Morning swirled in from the sea,
And down by the low river-wall,
In a long unforgettable row,
Man faces tremulous, old;
Terrible faces of youth,
Broken and seared by the war,
Where swift fire kindled and blazed
From embers hot under the years,
While hands gripped a cane or a crutch;
Patient dumb faces of women,
Mothers, sisters, and wives:
And the vessel hull-down in the sea,
Where the waters, just stirring from sleep,
Lifted bright hands to the sun,
Hiding their lusty young dead,
Holding them jealously close
Down to the cold harbor floor.
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