Explore "At the Cannon's Mouth. Destruction of the Ram Albermarle by the Torpedo-Launch. (October, 1864.)" by Herman Melville on Textopian.
Palely intent, he urged his keel / Full on the guns, and touched the spring; / Himself involved in the bolt he drove / Timed with the armed hull's shot that stove / His shallop -- die or do! / Into the flood his life he threw, / Yet lives -- unscathed -- a breathing thing / To marvel at.
He has his fame; / But that mad dash at death, how name?