Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well!
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.
O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood;
Land of the mountain and the flood.
[Note 8:] - "_Frigate-duels with the English, in which the navy was
really baptized_." Several great sea fights in this short war gave to
the Navy of the United States its reputation. Indeed, they charged the
navies of all the world. The first of these great battles is the fight
of the "Constitution" and "Guerrière," August 19, 1812.
[Note 9:] - The frigate "Essex," under Porter, took the Marquesas
Islands, in the Pacific, in 1813. Captain Porter was father of the
more celebrated Admiral Porter, who commanded the United States naval
forces in the Gulf of Mexico in 1863, when this story was written.
[Note 10:] - _Beledeljereed_. An Arab name. Beled el jerid means "The
Land of Dates." As a name it has disappeared from the books of
geography. But one hundred years ago it was given to the southern part
of the Algeria of to-day, and somewhat vaguely to other parts of the
ancient Numidia. It will be found spelled Biledelgerid. To use this
word now is somewhat like speaking of the Liliput of Gulliver.
[Note 11:] Page 40.-The English cruisers on the American coast, in the
great war between England and Napoleon, claimed the right to search
American merchantmen and men of war, to find, if they could, deserters
from the English navy. This was their way of showing their contempt for
the United States. In 1807 the "Chesapeake," a frigate of the United
States, was met by the "Leopard," an English frigate. She was not
prepared for fighting, and Barron, her commander, struck his flag. This
is the unfortunate vessel which surrendered to the "Shannon" on June
3, 1813.
[Note 12:] - No one has erected this monument. Its proper place would
be on the ruins of Fort Adams. That fort has been much worn away by the
Mississippi River.