Most readers of these lines will remember that when the ship _Ocean
Monarch_ was turned off Liverpool on the 24th of August 1848,
Frederick Jerome of New York saved fifteen lives by an act of
singular courage and benevolence. They will also lament that one so
ready to help others should himself perish by violence: he was
killed in Central America in the autumn of 1851.
Shout the noble seaman's name,
Deeds like _his_ belong to fame:
Cottage roof and kingly dome,
Sound the praise of brave Jerome.
Let his acts be told and sung,
While his own high Saxon tongue--
Herald meet for worth sublime--
Peals from conquered clime to clime.
Madly rolled the giant wreck,
Fiercely blazed the riven deck;
Thick and fast as falling stars,
Crashed the flaming blocks and spars;
Loud as surf, when winds are strong,
Wailed the scorched and stricken throng,
Gazing on a rugged shore,
Fires behind, and seas before.
On the charred and reeling prow
Reft of hope, they gather now,
Finding, one by one, a grave
In the vexed and sullen wave.
Here the child, as if in sleep,
Floats on waters dark and deep;
There the mother sinks below,
Shrieking in her mighty wo.
Britons, quick to strive or feel,
Joined with chiefs of rich Brazil;
Western freemen, prompt to dare,
Side by side with Bourbon's heir;
Proving who could _then_ excel,
Came with succour long and well;
But Jerome, in peril nursed;
Shone among the foremost--_first_.
Through the reddened surge and spray,
Fast he cleaves his troubled way;
Boldly climbs and stoutly clings,
On the smoking timber springs;
Fronts the flames, nor fears to stand
In that lorn and weeping band;
Looks on death, nor tries to shun,
Till his work of love is done.
Glorious man!--immortal work!--
Claim thy hero, proud New York;
Harp of him when feasts are spread,
Tomb him with thy valiant dead.
Who that, bent on just renown,
Seeks a Christian's prize and crown,
Would not spurn whole years of life,
For one hour of _such_ a strife?
* * * * *
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