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Ye who remembered the Alamo,

Remember the Maine!

Richard Hovey [1864-1900]

DEWEY AT MANILA

[MAY 1, 1898]

'Twas the very verge of May

When the bold Olympia led Into Bocagrande Bay

Dewey's squadron, dark and dread,Creeping past Corregidor,

Guardian of Manila's shore.

Do they sleep who wait the fray?
Is the moon so dazzling bright
That our cruisers' battle-gray
Melts into the misty light? ...
Ah! the red flash and the roar!
Wakes at last Corregidor!

All too late their screaming shell
Tears the silence with its track;
This is but the gate of hell,

We've no leisure to turn back.
Answer, Concord!—then once more
Slumber on, Corregidor!

And as, like a slowing tide,

Onward still the vessels creep,

Dewey, watching, falcon-eyed,

Orders,-"Let the gunners sleep;

For we meet a foe at four
Fiercer than Corregidor."

Well they slept, for well they knew
What the morrow taught us all,—

He was wise (as well as true)
Thus upon the foe to fall.

Long shall Spain the day deplore
Dewey ran Corregidor.

May is dancing into light
As the Spanish Admiral
From a dream of phantom fight
Wakens at his sentry's call.
Shall he leave Cavité's lee,
Hunt the Yankee fleet at sea?

O Montojo, to thy deck,

That to-day shall float its last! Quick! To quarters! Yonder speck Grows a hull of portent vast. Hither, toward Cavite's lee

Comes the Yankee hunting thee!

Not for fear of hidden mine

Halts our doughty Commodore. He, of old heroic line,

Follows Farragut once more,

Hazards all on victory,

Here within Cavité's lee.

If he loses, all is gone;

He will win because he must. And the shafts of yonder dawn Are not quicker than his thrust. Soon, Montojo, he shall be

With thee in Cavité's lee.

Now, Manila, to the fray!

Show the hated Yankee host

This is not a holiday,

Spanish blood is more than boast.

Fleet and mine and battery,

Crush him in Cavité's lee!

Lo, hell's geysers at our fore

Pierce the plotted path-in vain,

Nerving every man the more

With the memory of the Maine!

Now at last our guns are free

Here within Cavité's lee.

"Gridley," says the Commodore,

"You may fire when ready." Then Long and loud, like lions' roar

When a rival dares the den, Breaks the awful cannonry Full across Cavité's lee.

Who shall tell the daring tale
Of our Thunderbolt's attack,
Finding, when the chart should fail,
By the lead his dubious track,
Five ships following faithfully
Five times o'er Cavité's lee;

Of our gunners' deadly aim;

Of the gallant foe and brave Who, unconquered, faced with flame, Seek the mercy of the wave,— Choosing honor in the sea Underneath Cavité's lee?

Let the meed the victors gain
Be the measure of their task.
Less of flinching, stouter strain,
Fiercer combat-who could ask?
And "surrender,"-'twas a word
That Cavité ne'er had heard.

Noon, the woful work is done!
Not a Spanish ship remains;

But, of their eleven, none

Ever was so truly Spain's! Which is prouder, they or we, Thinking of Cavité's lee?

ENVOY

But remember, when we've ceased Giving praise and reckoning odds, Man shares courage with the beast, Wisdom cometh from the gods:

Who would win, on land or wave,
Must be wise as well as brave.

Robert Underwood Johnson [1853

DEEDS OF VALOR AT SANTIAGO

[JULY 1, 1898]

WHO cries that the days of daring are those that are faded

far,

That never a light burns planet-bright to be hailed as the

hero's star?

Let the deeds of the dead be laureled, the brave of the elder

years,

But a song, we say, for the men of to-day, who have proved themselves their peers!

High in the vault of the tropic sky is the garish eye of the

sun,

And down with its crown of guns afrown looks the hilltop

to be won;

There is the trench where the Spaniard lurks, his hold and his hiding-place,

And he who would cross the space between must meet death face to face.

The black mouths belch and thunder, and the shrapnel shrieks and flies;

Where are the fain and the fearless, the lads with the dauntless eyes?

Will the moment find then wanting! Nay, but with valor stirred!

Like the leashed hound on the coursing-ground they wait but the warning word.

'Charge!" and the line moves forward, moves with a shout and a swing,

While sharper far than the cactus-thorn is the spiteful bullet's sting.

Now they are out in the open, and now they are breasting

the slope,

While into the eyes of death they gaze as into the eyes of

hope.

Never they wait nor waver, but on they clamber and on, With "Up with the flag of the Stripes and Stars, and down with the flag of the Don!"

What should they bear through the shot-rent air but rout to the ranks of Spain,

For the blood that throbs in their hearts is the blood of the boys of Anthony Wayne!

See, they have taken the trenches! Where are the foemen? Gone!

And now "Old Glory" waves in the breeze from the heights of San Juan!

And so, while the dead are laureled, the brave of the elder

years,

A song, we say, for the men of to-day, who have proved themselves their peers.

Clinton Scollard [1860

BREATH ON THE OAT

FREE are the Muses, and where freedom is
They follow, as the thrushes follow spring,
Leaving the old lands songless there behind;
Parnassus disenchanted suns its woods,

Empty of every nymph; wide have they flown;

And now on new sierras think to set

Their wandering court, and thrill the world anew,
Where the Republic babbling waits its speech;
For but the prelude of its mighty song

As yet has sounded. Therefore, would I woo
Apollo to the land I love, 'tis vain;
Unknown he spies on us; and if my verse
Ring not the empyrean round and round,
'Tis that the feeble oat is few of stops.

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