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Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking—preparations
to pass to the one we had conquered,
The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his
orders through a countenance white as a sheet,
Near by, the corpse of the child that served in the
cabin,
The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and
carefully curled whiskers,
The flames, spite of all that could be done, flickering
aloft and below,
The husky voices of the two or three officers yet
fit for duty,
Formless stacks of bodies, and bodies by themselves
—dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars,
Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the
soothe of waves,
Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels,
strong scent,
Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and
fields by the shore, death-messages given in
charge to survivors,
The hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of
his saw,
Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild
scream, and long dull tapering groan,
These so—these irretrievable.

243.O Christ! This is mastering me!
Through the conquered doors they crowd. I am
possessed.

244.What the rebel said, gayly adjusting his throat to the
rope-noose,