The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-11-15
THE STORY OF THE "oRIENT.'

ST was q pleasant Sunday morning while the
spring was in its glory,
English spring of gentle gloryi smoking BY
his cottage door,
Florid-faeed, the man-o'.wars man told his
whitehead boy the story,
Noble story OF Aboukir, told hundred times
before.
"Here, the Theseus-here, the Vanguard; :" a. he
spoke each name sonorous-
Ainotaur, Defence, Majestic, staunoh old COM
rades of the brine,
That against the ships of Brueys made their
broadsides roar In chorus
Ranging daisies on his doorstone, deft he
mapped the battle line.
Mapped the curve of tall three-deckers, deft a.
might a man left handed,
Who had given an arm to England later on at
Trafalgar.
While he poured the praise of Nelson 70 the
child with eyes expanded,
Bright athwart his honest forehead blushed
the scarlet cutlass scar.
For he served aboard the Vanguard, saw the
admiral, blind and bleeding
Borne below by silent sailors, borne to die as
then they deemed.
Every stout heart sick but stubborn, fought the
seadogs on unbeedlng,
Guns were cleared and manned and cleared,
the battle thundered, flashed and screamed.
Till d cry swelled loud and louder-towered ON
fre the Orient stately,
Brueys flagship, she that carried guns . hum
dred and Il score;
Then came cropping up the hatchway he they
counted dead but lately,
Came the little one-armed admiral to guide
the fight once more.
"Lower the boats~ was Nelson's order. But the
listening boy beside him,
Who had followed all his motions with an
eager wide blue eye,
Nursed upon the name Of Nelson till he half had
deified him,
Here, with childhood's crude consistencs,
broke the tale to question "WhyP
For by children facts go streaming in throng
that never pauses,
Noted not, till, OF sudden thought, a sun
beam, gilds the notes.
AL at once the known words quicken. and the
child would deal with cause:
Since to kill the French was righteous, why
babe Nelson lower the boats?
Quick the man put by the question. "But the
Orient, none could save her;
We could see the ships, the ensigns, clear as
daylight by the fare;
And q many leaped and left her; but, God rest
EN-, some were Drawer;
Some held by her, firing steady till she blew
to God knows where.
At the shock, he said, the Vanguard shook
through all her timbers oaken;
It was like the shock of Doomsday-not q tar
but shuddered hard.
ALI was hushed Tor one strange moment; then
that awful calm was broken
BY the heavy plash that answered the descent
OF mast anu YARD.
So, her cannon still defying. and her colors
flaming, flying,
In her pit her wounded helpless, on her deck
her admiral dead,
Scared the Orient into darkness with her living
and her dying.
"Yet our lads made shift to rescue three score
souls" the seaman said.
Long the boy with knit brows wondered Ger
that friending OF the foeman:
rnn Inn xuif shtsfI ndar ads
less he to tell the cause
Why the brother in his bosom that desired the
death of no man,
In the crash of battle weakened, snapped the
bonds Of his hate like straws.
While he unused, his toddling maiden drew the
daises to posy;
Mild the bells of Sunday morning rang across
the church yard sod;
And, helped on by tender hands. with sturdy
feet all bare and rosy,
Climbed his babe TO mothers breast, as climbs
the slow world up to God.
Helen GTay Cone