The Sunset Gun
Off Santa Cruz the western wave
Was crimson as with blood:
The sun was sinking to his grave
Beneath that angry flood.
Sir Walter Turnbull, brave and stout,
Then shouted, 'Ho! lads; run-
The powder and the ball bring out
To fire the sunset gun.
'That punctual orb did ne'er omit
To keep, by land or sea,
Its every engagement; it
Shall never wait for me.'
Behold the black-mouthed cannon stand,
Ready with charge and prime,
The lanyard in the gunner's hand.
Sir Walter waits the time.
The glowing orb sinks in the sea,
And clouds of steam aspire,
Then fade, and the horizon's free.
Sir Walter thunders: 'Fire!'
The gunner pulls-the lanyard parts
And not a sound ensues.
The beating of ten thousand hearts
Was heard at Santa Cruz!
Off Santa Cruz the western wave
Was crimson as with blood;
The sun, with visage stern and grave,
Came back from out the flood.
Polyphemus
Twas a sick young man with a face ungay
And an eye that was all alone;
And he shook his head in a hopeless way
As he sat on a roadside stone.
'O, ailing youth, what untoward fate
Has made the sun to set
On your mirth and eye?' 'I'm constrained to state
I'm an ex-West Point cadet.
''Twas at cannon-practice I got my hurt
And my present frame of mind;
For the gun went off with a double spurt-
Before it, and also behind!'
'How sad, how sad, that a fine young chap,
When studying how to kill,
Should meet with so terrible a mishap
Precluding eventual skill.
'Ah, woful to think that a weapon made
For mowing down the foe
Should commit so dreadful an escapade
As to turn about to mow!'
No more he heeded while I condoled:
He was wandering in his mind;
His lonely eye unconsidered rolled,
And his views he thus defined:
''Twas O for a breach of the peace-'twas O
For an international brawl!
But a piece of the breech-ah no, ah no,
I didn't want that at all.'
