A blockade-runner carried the silk, Heavy as bullion and white as milk, That makes Amanda a gleaming moth. For the coasts are staked with a Union net But the dark fish slip through the meshes yet, Shadows sliding without a light, Through the dark of the moon, in the dead of night, Carrying powder, carrying cloth, Hoops for the belle and guns for the fighter, Guncotton, opium, bombs and tea. Fashionplates, quinine and history. For Charleston’s corked with a Northern fleet And the Bayou City lies at the feet Of a damn-the-torpedoes commodore; The net draws tighter and ever tighter, But the fish dart past till the end of the war, From Wilmington to the Rio Grande, And the sandy Bahamas are Dixie Land Where the crammed, black shadows start for the trip That, once clean-run, will pay for the ship. They are caught, they are sunk with all aboard. They scrape through safely and praise the Lord, Ready to start with the next jammed hold To pull Death’s whiskers out in the cold,