“Dupont’s Round Fight”

The interesting short poem “Dupont’s Round Fight” was probably inspired by the map in Volume III, Doc. 106 and its accompanying explanation. The poem is brief enough to be given here in its entirety:

In time and measure perfect moves
All Art whose aim is sure;
Evolving rhyme and stars divine
Have rules, and they endure.

Nor less the Fleet that warred for Right,
And, warring so, prevailed,
In geometric beauty curved,
And in an orbit sailed.

The rebel at Port Royal felt
The Unity overawe,
And rued the spell. A type was here,
And victory of Law.

The cut lines speak of “a circle, or ellipse,” probably suggesting Melville’s reference to “geometric beauty.”