Page:Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.djvu/40

 A whaler when her wrinkles came—

Turned off! till, spent and poor,

Her bones were sold (escheat)!

Ah! Stone Fleet.

Four were erst patrician keels

(Names attest what families be),

The Kensington, and Richmond too,

Leonidas, and Lee:

But now they have their seat

With the Old Stone Fleet.

To scuttle them—a pirate deed—

Sack them, and dismast;

They sunk so slow, they died so hard,

But gurgling dropped at last.

Their ghosts in gales repeat

Woe's us, Stone Fleet!

And all for naught. The waters pass—

Currents will have their way;

Nature is nobody's ally; 'tis well;

The harbor is bettered—will stay.

A failure, and complete,

Was your Old Stone Fleet.