Explore "A Requiem (Poems from Battle Pieces)" by Herman Melville on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"For Soldiers lost in Ocean Transports"
When, after storms that woodlands rue, / To valleys comes atoning dawn, / The robins blithe their orchard-sports renew; / And meadow-larks, no more withdrawn / Caroling fly in the languid blue; / The while, from many a hid recess, / Alert to partake the blessedness, / The pouring mites their airy dance pursue.
So, after ocean's ghastly gales, / When laughing light of hoyden morning breaks, / Every finny hider wakes- / From vaults profound swims up with glittering scales; / Through the delightsome sea he sails, / With shoals of shining tiny things / Frolic on every wave that flings / Against the prow its showery spray; / All creatures joying in the morn, / Save them forever from joyance torn, / Whose bark was lost where now the dolphins play; / Save them that by the fabled shore, / Down the pale stream are washed away, / Far to the reef of bones are borne; / And never revisits them the light, / Nor sight of long-sought land and pilot more; / Nor heed they now the lone bird's flight / Round the lone spar where mid-sea surges pour.