but, under the advice of Sitting Bull, they refused to stir. A
detachment under Lieutenant-Colonel George A. Custer was sent
against them, and came suddenly upon their encampment on June
25, 1876. A terrific fight followed, in which Custer and all of
his men were killed.
DOWN THE LITTLE BIG HORN
June 25, 1876
Down the Little Big Horn
(O troop forlorn!),
Right into the camp of the Sioux
(What was the muster?),
Two hundred and sixty-two
Went into the fight with Custer,
Went out of the fight with Custer,
Went out at a breath,
Stanch to the death!
Just from the canyon emerging,
Saw they the braves of Sitting Bull surging,
Two thousand and more,
Painted and feathered, thirsting for gore,
Did they shrink and turn back
(Hear how the rifles crack!),
Did they pause for a life,
For a sweetheart or wife?
And one in that savage throng
(His revenge had waited long),
Pomped with porcupine quills,
His deerskins beaded and fringed,
An eagle's plume in his long black hair,
His tall lance fluttering in the air,
Glanced at the circling hills--
His cheeks flushed with a keen surmise,
A demon's hate in his eyes
Remembering the hour when he cringed,
A prisoner thonged,
Chief Rain-in-the-Face
(There was a sachem wronged!)
Saw his enemy's heart laid bare,
Feasted in thought like a beast in his lair.
Cavalry, cavalry
(Tramp of the hoof, champ of the bit),
Horses prancing, cavorting,
Shying and snorting,
Accoutrements rattling
(Children at home are prattling),
Gallantly, gallantly,
"Company dismount!"
From the saddle they swing,
With their steeds form a ring
(Hear how the bullets sing!),
Who can their courage recount?
Do you blanch at their fate?
(Who would hesitate?)
Two hundred and sixty-two
Immortals in blue,
Standing shoulder to shoulder,
Like some granite boulder
You must blast to displace
(Were they of a valiant race?)--
Two hundred and sixty-two,
And never a man to say,
"I rode with Custer that day."
Give the savage his triumph and bluster,
Give the hero to perish with Custer,
To his God and his comrades true.
Closing and closing,
Nearer the redskins creep;
With cunning disposing,
With yell and with whoop
(There are women shall weep!),
They gather and swoop,
They come like a flood,
Maddened with blood,
They shriek, plying the knife
(Was there one begged for his life?),
Where but a moment ago
Stood serried and sternly the foe,
Now fallen, mangled below.
Down the Little Big Horn
(Tramp of the hoof, champ of the bit),
A single steed in the morn,
Comanche, seven times hit,
Comes to the river to drink;
Lists for the sabre's clink,
Lists for the voice of his master
(O glorious disaster!),
Comes, sniffing the air,
Gazing, lifts his head,
But his master lies dead.
(Who but the dead were there?)
But stay, what was the muster?
Two hundred and sixty-two
(Two thousand and more the Sioux!)
Went into the fight with Custer,
Went out of the fight with Custer;
For never a man can say,
"I rode with Custer that day--"
Went out like a taper,
Blown by a sudden vapor,
Went out at a breath,
True to the death!
FRANCIS BROOKS.
LITTLE BIG HORN
[June 25, 1876]
Beside the lone river,
That idly lay dreaming,
Flashed sudden the gleaming
Of sabre and gun
In the light of the sun
As over the hillside the soldiers came streaming.
One peal of the bugle
In stillness unbroken
That sounded a token
Of soul-stirring strife,
Savage war to the knife,
Then silence that seemed like defiance unspoken.
But out of an ambush
Came warriors riding,
Swift ponies bestriding,
Shook rattles and shells,
With a discord of yells.
That fired the hearts of their comrades in hiding.
Then fierce on the wigwams
The soldiers descended,
And madly were blended,
The red man and white
In a hand-to-hand fight,
With the Indian village assailed and defended.
And there through the passage
Of battle-torn spaces,
From dark lurking-places,
With blood-curdling cry
And their knives held on high,
Rushed Amazon women with wild, painted faces.
Then swung the keen sabres
And flashed the sure rifles
Their message that stifles
The shout in red throats,
While the reckless blue-coats
Laughed on 'mid the fray as men laugh over trifles.
Grim cavalry troopers
Unshorn and unshaven,
And never a craven
In ambuscade caught,
How like demons they fought
Round the knoll on the prairie that marked their last haven.
But the Sioux circled nearer
The shrill war-whoop crying,
And death-hail was flying,
Yet still they fought on
Till the last shot was gone,
And all that remained were the dead and the dying.
A song for their death, and
No black plumes of sorrow,
This recompense borrow,
Like heroes they died
Man to man--side by side;
We lost them to-day, we shall meet them to-morrow.
And on the lone river,
Has faded the seeming
Of bright armor gleaming,
But there by the shore
With the ghosts of no-more
The shades of the dead through the ages lie dreaming.
ERNEST MCGAFFEY.
CUSTER'S LAST CHARGE
[June 25, 1876]
Dead! Is it possible? He, the bold rider,
Custer, our hero, the first in the fight,
Charming the bullets of yore to fly wider,
Far from our battle-king's ringlets of light!
Dead, our young chieftain, and dead, all forsaken!
No one to tell us the way of his fall!
Slain in the desert, and never to waken,
Never, not even to victory's call!
Proud for his fame that last day that he met them!
All the night long he had been on their track,
Scorning their traps and the men that had set them,
Wild for a charge that should never give back.
There on the hilltop he halted and saw them,--
Lodges all loosened and ready to fly;
Hurrying scouts with the tidings to awe them,
Told of his coming before he was nigh.
All the wide valley was full of their forces,
Gathered to cover the lodges' retreat!--
Warriors running in haste to their horses,
Thousands of enemies close to his feet!
Down in the valleys the ages had hollowed,
There lay the Sitting Bull's camp for a prey!
Numbers! What recked he? What recked those who followed--
Men who had fought ten to one ere that day?
Out swept the squadrons, the fated three hundred,
Into the battle-line steady and full;
Then down the hillside exultingly thundered,
Into the hordes of the old Sitting Bull!
Wild Ogalallah, Arapahoe, Cheyenne,
Wild Horse's braves, and the rest of their crew,
Shrank from that charge like a herd from a lion,--
Then closed around, the grim horde of wild Sioux!
Right to their centre he charged, and then facing--
Hark to those yells! and around them, O see!
Over the hilltops the Indians come racing,
Coming as fast as the waves of the sea!
Red was the circle of fire around them;
No hope of victory, no ray of light,
Shot through that terrible black cloud without them,
Brooding in death over Custer's last fight.
Then did he blench? Did he die like a craven,
Begging those torturing fiends for his life?
Was there a soldier who carried the Seven
Flinched like a coward or fled from the strife?
No, by the blood of our Custer, no quailing!
There in the midst of the Indians they close,
Hemmed in by thousands, but ever assailing,
Fighting like tigers, all 'bayed amid foes!
Thicker and thicker the bullets came singing;
Down go the horses and riders and all;
Swiftly the warriors round them were ringing,
Circling like buzzards awaiting their fall.
See the wild steeds of the mountain and prairie,
Savage eyes gleaming from forests of mane;
Quivering lances with pennons so airy,
War-painted warriors charging amain.
Backward, again and again, they were driven,
Shrinking to close with the lost little band;
Never a cap that had worn the bright Seven
Bowed till its wearer was dead on the strand.
Closer and closer the death circle growing,
Ever the leader's voice, clarion clear,
Rang out his words of encouragement glowing,
"We can but die once, boys,--we'll sell our lives dear!"
Dearly they sold them like Berserkers raging,
Facing the death that encircled them round;
Death's bitter pangs by their vengeance assuaging,
Marking their tracks by their dead on the ground.
Comrades, our children shall yet tell their story,--
Custer's last charge on the old Sitting Bull;
And ages shall swear that the cup of his glory
Needed but that death to render it full.
FREDERICK WHITTAKER.
CUSTER
[June 25, 1876]
What! shall that sudden blade
Leap out no more?
No more thy hand be laid
Upon the sword-hilt smiting sore?
O for another such
The charger's rein to clutch,--
One equal voice to summon victory,
Sounding thy battle-cry,
Brave darling of the soldiers' choice!
Would there were one more voice!
O gallant charge, too bold!
O fierce, imperious greed
To pierce the clouds that in their darkness hold
Slaughter of man and steed!
Now, stark and cold,
Among thy fallen braves thou liest,
And even with thy blood defiest
The wolfish foe:
But ah, thou liest low,
And all our birthday song is hushed indeed!
Young lion of the plain,
Thou of the tawny mane!
Hotly the soldiers' hearts shall beat,
Their mouths thy death repeat,
Their vengeance seek the trail again
Where thy red doomsmen be;
But on the charge no more shall stream
Thy hair,--no more thy sabre gleam,--
No more ring out thy battle-shout,
Thy cry of victory!
Not when a hero falls
The sound a world appalls:
For while we plant his cross
There is a glory, even in the loss:
But when some craven heart
From honor dares to part,
Then, then, the groan, the blanching cheek,
And men in whispers speak,
Nor kith nor country dare reclaim
From the black depths his name.
Thou, wild young warrior, rest,
By all the prairie winds caressed!
Swift was thy dying pang;
Even as the war-cry rang
Thy deathless spirit mounted high
And sought Columbia's sky:--
There, to the northward far,
Shines a new star,
And from it blazes down
The light of thy renown!
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
July 10, 1876.
The Indians were led by Rain-in-the-Face. The year before, he
had been arrested by Captain Tom Custer at Standing Rock, and
had threatened to eat the latter's heart. The Captain was among
the killed, and Rain-in-the-Face is said to have made good
his threat. Mr. Longfellow is mistaken in saying that Colonel
George Custer was thus mutilated. His body was not disfigured
in any way.
THE REVENGE OF RAIN-IN-THE-FACE
[June 25, 1876]
In that desolate land and lone,
Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone
Roar down their mountain path,
By their fires the Sioux Chiefs
Muttered their woes and griefs
And the menace of their wrath.
"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face,
"Revenge upon all the race
Of the White Chief with yellow hair!"
And the mountains dark and high
From their crags reëchoed the cry
Of his anger and despair.
In the meadow, spreading wide
By woodland and river-side
The Indian village stood;
All was silent as a dream,
Save the rushing of the stream
And the blue-jay in the wood.
In his war paint and his beads,
Like a bison among the reeds,
In ambush the Sitting Bull
Lay with three thousand braves
Crouched in the clefts and caves,
Savage, unmerciful!
Into the fatal snare
The White Chief with yellow hair
And his three hundred men
Dashed headlong, sword in hand;
But of that gallant band
Not one returned again.
The sudden darkness of death
Overwhelmed them like the breath
And smoke of a furnace fire:
By the river's bank, and between
The rocks of the ravine,
They lay in their bloody attire.
But the foemen fled in the night,
And Rain-in-the-Face, in his flight,
Uplifted high in air
As a ghastly trophy, bore
The brave heart, that beat no more,
Of the White Chief with yellow hair.
Whose was the right and the wrong?
Sing it, O funeral song,
With a voice that is full of tears,
And say that our broken faith
Wrought all this ruin and scathe,
In the Year of a Hundred Years.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
One survivor there was, and only one, Comanche, the horse
ridden by Captain Miles Keogh. He was found several miles from
the battlefield, and had been wounded seven times. By order
of the Secretary of War, a soldier was detailed to take care
of him as long as he lived, and no one was ever afterwards
permitted to ride him.
MILES KEOGH'S HORSE
On the bluff of the Little Big-Horn,
At the close of a woful day,
Custer and his Three Hundred
In death and silence lay.
Three Hundred to Three Thousand!
They had bravely fought and bled;
For such is the will of Congress
When the White man meets the Red.
The White men are ten millions,
The thriftiest under the sun;
The Reds are fifty thousand,
And warriors every one.
So Custer and all his fighting men
Lay under the evening skies,
Staring up at the tranquil heaven
With wide, accusing eyes.
And of all that stood at noonday
In that fiery scorpion ring,
Miles Keogh's horse at evening
Was the only living thing.
Alone from that field of slaughter,
Where lay the three hundred slain,
The horse Comanche wandered,
With Keogh's blood on his mane.
And Sturgis issued this order,
Which future times shall read,
While the love and honor of comrades
Are the soul of the soldier's creed.
He said--
_Let the horse Comanche
Henceforth till he shall die,
Be kindly cherished and cared for
By the Seventh Cavalry._
_He shall do no labor; he never shall know
The touch of spur or rein;
Nor shall his back be ever crossed
By living rider again._
_And at regimental formation
Of the Seventh Cavalry,
Comanche draped in mourning and led
By a trooper of Company I,_
_Shall parade with the Regiment!_
Thus it was
Commanded and thus done,
By order of General Sturgis, signed
By Adjutant Garlington.
Even as the sword of Custer,
In his disastrous fall,
Flashed out a blaze that charmed the world
And glorified his pall.
This order, issued amid the gloom,
That shrouds our army's name,
When all foul beasts are free to rend
And tear its honest fame.
Shall prove to a callous people
That the sense of a soldier's worth,
That the love of comrades, the honor of arms,
Have not yet perished from earth.
JOHN HAY.
The government rushed a large force to the scene, and finally,
after painful fighting and toilsome marches stretching
over many months, the Indians were brought to terms.
Rain-in-the-Face afterwards professed himself a man of peace,
and in 1886 tried to enter Hampton Institute. He was killed
during the Sioux outbreak in 1890.
ON THE BIG HORN
[1886]
The years are but half a score,
And the war-whoop sounds no more
With the blast of bugles, where
Straight into a slaughter pen,
With his doomed three hundred men,
Rode the chief with the yellow hair.
O Hampton, down by the sea!
What voice is beseeching thee
For the scholar's lowliest place?
Can this be the voice of him
Who fought on the Big Horn's rim?
Can this be Rain-in-the-Face?
His war-paint is washed away,
His hands have forgotten to slay;
He seeks for himself and his race
The arts of peace and the lore
That give to the skilled hand more
Than the spoils of war and chase.
O chief of the Christ-like school!
Can the zeal of thy heart grow cool
When the victor scarred with fight
Like a child for thy guidance craves,
And the faces of hunters and braves
Are turning to thee for light?
The hatchet lies overgrown
With grass by the Yellowstone,
Wind River and Paw of Bear;
And, in sign that foes are friends,
Each lodge like a peace-pipe sends
Its smoke in the quiet air.
The hands that have done the wrong
To right the wronged are strong,
And the voice of a nation saith:
"Enough of the war of swords,
Enough of the lying words
And shame of a broken faith!"
The hills that have watched afar
The valleys ablaze with war
Shall look on the tasselled corn;
And the dust of the grinded grain,
Instead of the blood of the slain,
Shall sprinkle thy banks, Big Horn!
The Ute and the wandering Crow
Shall know as the white men know,
And fare as the white men fare;
The pale and the red shall be brothers,
One's rights shall be as another's,
Home, School, and House of Prayer!
O mountains that climb to snow,
O river winding below,
Through meadows by war once trod,
O wild, waste lands that await
The harvest exceeding great,
Break forth into praise of God!
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
In 1886 another somewhat serious uprising took place among
the Apaches, a band of hostiles taking the war-path under the
chief, Geronimo. General Nelson A. Miles, after a long pursuit,
succeeded in capturing them.
THE "GREY HORSE TROOP"
All alone on the hillside--
Larry an' Barry an' me;
Nothin' to see but the sky an' the plain,
Nothin' to see but the drivin' rain,
Nothin' to see but the painted Sioux,
Galloping, galloping: "Whoop--whuroo!
The divil in yellow is down in the mud!"
Sez Larry to Barry, "I'm losin' blood."
"Cheers for the Greys!" yells Barry;
"Second Dragoons!" groans Larry;
Hurrah! hurrah! for Egan's Grey Troop!
Whoop! ye divils--ye've got to whoop;
Cheer for the troopers who die: sez I--
"Cheer for the troop that never shall die!"
All alone on the hillside--
Larry an' Barry an' me;
Flat on our bellies, an' pourin' in lead--
Seven rounds left, an' the horses dead--
Barry a-cursin' at every breath;
Larry beside him, as white as death;
Indians galloping, galloping by,
Wheelin' and squealin' like hawks in the sky!
"Cheers for the Greys!" yells Barry;
"Second Dragoons!" groans Larry;
Hurrah! hurrah! for Egan's Grey Troop!
Whoop! ye divils--ye've got to whoop;
Cheer for the troopers who die: sez I--
"Cheer for the troop that never shall die!"
All alone on the hillside--
Larry an' Barry an' me;
Two of us livin' and one of us dead--
Shot in the head, and God!--how he bled!
"Larry's done up," sez Barry to me;
"Divvy his cartridges! Quick! gimme three!"
While nearer an' nearer an' plainer in view,
Galloped an' galloped the murderin' Sioux.
"Cheers for the Greys!" yells Barry;
"Cheer--" an' he falls on Larry.
Alas! alas! for Egan's Grey Troop!
The Red Sioux, hovering stoop to swoop;
Two out of three lay dead, while I
Cheered for the troop that never shall die.
All alone on the hillside--
Larry an' Barry an' me;
An' I fired an' yelled till I lost my head,
Cheerin' the livin', cheerin' the dead,
Swingin' my cap, I cheered until
I stumbled and fell. Then over the hill
There floated a trumpeter's silvery call,
An' Egan's Grey Troop galloped up, that's all.
Drink to the Greys,--an' Barry!
Second Dragoons,--an' Larry!
Here's a bumper to Egan's Grey Troop!
Let the crape on the guidons droop;
Drink to the troopers who die, while I
Drink to the troop that never shall die!
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.
Geronimo was sent to Fort Pickens, Florida, where he was kept
in captivity for the remainder of his life.
GERONIMO
Beside that tent and under guard
In majesty alone he stands,
As some chained eagle, broken-winged,
With eyes that gleam like smouldering brands,--
A savage face, streaked o'er with paint,
And coal-black hair in unkempt mane,
Thin, cruel lips, set rigidly,--
A red Apache Tamerlane.
As restless as the desert winds,
Yet here he stands like carven stone,
His raven locks by breezes moved
And backward o'er his shoulders blown;
Silent, yet watchful as he waits
Robed in his strange, barbaric guise,
While here and there go searchingly
The cat-like wanderings of his eyes.
The eagle feather on his head
Is dull with many a bloody stain,
While darkly on his lowering brow
Forever rests the mark of Cain.
Have you but seen a tiger caged
And sullen through his barriers glare?
Mark well his human prototype,
The fierce Apache fettered there.
ERNEST MCGAFFEY.
In 1889 the territory known as Oklahoma was opened to
settlement, and again the Indians saw their hunting-grounds
invaded by the white man, while they themselves were compelled
to remove to a new reservation. Sitting Bull again advised
resistance, and was killed while trying to escape arrest. A
squaw of the tribe, made desperate by the removal, killed her
baby and committed suicide.
THE LAST RESERVATION
Sullen and dark, in the September day,
On the bank of the river
They waited the boat that would bear them away
From their poor homes forever.
For progress strides on, and the order had gone
To these wards of the nation,
"Give us land and more room," was the cry, "and move on
To the next reservation."
With her babe, she looked back at the home 'neath the trees
From which they were driven,
Where the smoke of the last camp fire, borne on the breeze,
Rose slowly toward heaven.
Behind her, fair fields, and the forest and glade,
The home of her nation;
Around her, the gleam of the bayonet and blade
Of civilization.
Clasping close to her bosom the small dusky form,
With tender caressing,
She bent down, on the cheek of her babe soft and warm
A mother's kiss pressing.
There's a splash in the river--the column moves on,
Close-guarded and narrow,
With hardly more note of the two that are gone
Than the fall of a sparrow.
Only an Indian! Wretched, obscure,
To refinement a stranger,
And a babe, that was born, in a wigwam as poor
And rude as a manger.
Moved on--to make room for the growth in the West
Of a brave Christian nation,
Moved on--and, thank God, forever at rest
In the last reservation.
WALTER LEARNED.
That was the last of the Indian outbreaks. Although there are
still more than two hundred thousand Indians in the United
States, by far the greater part of them have adopted the dress
and customs of the white man and are engaged in peaceful
occupations. The remainder are content to live in idleness upon
the government's bounty.
INDIAN NAMES
Ye say they all have pass'd away,
That noble race and brave,
That their light canoes have vanish'd
From off the crested wave;
That, 'mid the forests where they roam'd,
There rings no hunter's shout;
But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out.
'Tis where Ontario's billow
Like ocean's surge is curl'd;
Where strong Niagara's thunders wake
The echo of the world;
Where red Missouri bringeth
Rich tribute from the West,
And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps
On green Virginia's breast.
Ye say their conelike cabins,
That cluster'd o'er the vale,
Have fled away like wither'd leaves
Before the autumn's gale:
But their memory liveth on your hills,
Their baptism on your shore;
Your everlasting rivers speak
Their dialect of yore.
Old Massachusetts wears it
Within her lordly crown,
And broad Ohio bears it
'Mid all her young renown;
Connecticut hath wreathed it
Where her quiet foliage waves,
And bold Kentucky breathes it hoarse,
Through all her ancient caves.
Wachusett hides its lingering voice
Within his rocky heart,
And Alleghany graves its tone
Throughout his lofty chart;
Monadnock on his forehead hoar
Doth seal the sacred trust:
Your mountains build their monument,
Though ye destroy their dust.
LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY.
CHAPTER IV
THE SECOND ASSASSINATION
On the fourth day of March, 1881, James Abram Garfield,
Republican, was inaugurated President of the United States. He
had served with distinction in the Civil War and afterwards in
Congress and seemed destined to enjoy a peaceful and prosperous
administration. But on July 1 he was shot down at Washington by
Charles J. Guiteau, a half-crazed, disappointed office-seeker.
The President fought manfully for life, but blood poisoning
developed, and death followed on September 19.
REJOICE
"Bear me out of the battle, for lo! I am sorely
wounded."
From out my deep, wide-bosomed West,
Where unnamed heroes hew the way
For worlds to follow, with stern zest,--
Where gnarled old maples make array,
Deep-scarred from red men gone to rest,--
Where pipes the quail, where squirrels play
Through tossing trees, with nuts for toy,
A boy steps forth, clear-eyed and tall,
A bashful boy, a soulful boy,
Yet comely as the sons of Saul,--
A boy, all friendless, poor, unknown,
Yet heir-apparent to a throne.
II
Lo! Freedom's bleeding sacrifice!
So, like some tall oak tempest-blown,
Beside the storied stream he lies
Now at the last, pale-browed and prone.
A nation kneels with streaming eyes,
A nation supplicates the throne,
A nation holds him by the hand,
A nation sobs aloud at this:
The only dry eyes in the land
Now at the last, I think, are his.
Why, we should pray, God knoweth best,
That this grand, patient soul should rest.
III
The world is round. The wheel has run
Full circle. Now behold a grave
Beneath the old loved trees is done.
The druid oaks lift up, and wave
A solemn welcome back. The brave
Old maples murmur, every one,
"Receive him, Earth!" In centre land,
As in the centre of each heart,
As in the hollow of God's hand,
The coffin sinks. And with it part
All party hates! Now, not in vain
He bore his peril and hard pain.
IV
Therefore, I say, rejoice! I say,
The lesson of his life was much,--
This boy that won, as in a day,
The world's heart utterly; a touch
Of tenderness and tears: the page
Of history grows rich from such;
His name the nation's heritage,--
But oh! as some sweet angel's voice
Spake this brave death that touched us all.
Therefore, I say, Rejoice! Rejoice!
Run high the flags! Put by the pall!
Lo! all is for the best for all!
JOAQUIN MILLER.
THE BELLS AT MIDNIGHT
[September 19, 1881]
In their dark House of Cloud
The three weird sisters toil till time be sped;
One unwinds life, one ever weaves the shroud,
One waits to part the thread.
I
CLOTHO
How long, O sister, how long
Ere the weary task is done?
How long, O sister, how long
Shall the fragile thread be spun?
LACHESIS
'Tis mercy that stays her hand,
Else she had cut the thread;
She is a woman too,
Like her who kneels by his bed!
ATROPOS
Patience! the end is come;
He shall no more endure:
See! with a single touch!--
My hand is swift and sure!
II
Two Angels pausing in their flight.
FIRST ANGEL
Listen! what was it fell
An instant ago on my ear--
A sound like the throb of a bell
From yonder darkling sphere!
SECOND ANGEL
The planet where mortals dwell!
I hear it not ... yes, I hear;
How it deepens--a sound of dole!
FIRST ANGEL
Listen! It is the knell
Of a passing soul--
The midnight lamentation
Of some stricken nation
For a Chieftain's soul!
It is just begun,
The many-throated moan ...
Now the clangor swells
As if a million bells
Had blent their tones in one!
Accents of despair
Are these to mortal ear;
But all this wild funereal music blown
And sifted through celestial air
Turns to triumphal pæans here!
Wave upon wave the silvery anthems flow;
Wave upon wave the deep vibrations roll
From that dim sphere below.
Come, let us go--
Surely, some chieftain's soul!
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.
J. A. G.
Our sorrow sends its shadow round the earth.
So brave, so true! A hero from his birth!
The plumes of Empire moult, in mourning draped,
The lightning's message by our tears is shaped.
Life's vanities that blossom for an hour
Heap on his funeral car their fleeting flower.
Commerce forsakes her temples, blind and dim,
And pours her tardy gold, to homage him.
The notes of grief to age familiar grow
Before the sad privations all must know;
But the majestic cadence which we hear
To-day, is new in either hemisphere.
What crown is this, high hung and hard to reach,
Whose glory so outshines our laboring speech?
The crown of Honor, pure and unbetrayed;
He wins the spurs who bears the knightly aid.
While royal babes incipient empire hold,
And, for bare promise, grasp the sceptre's gold,
This man such service to his age did bring
That they who knew him servant, hailed him king.
In poverty his infant couch was spread;
His tender hands soon wrought for daily bread;
But from the cradle's bound his willing feet
The errand of the moment went to meet.
When learning's page unfolded to his view,
The quick disciple straight a teacher grew;
And, when the fight of freedom stirred the land,
Armed was his heart and resolute his hand.
Wise in the council, stalwart in the field!
Such rank supreme a workman's hut may yield.
His onward steps like measured marbles show,
Climbing the height where God's great flame doth glow.
Ah! Rose of joy, that hid'st a thorn so sharp!
Ah! Golden woof that meet'st a severed warp!
Ah! Solemn comfort that the stars rain down!
The hero's garland his, the martyr's crown.
JULIA WARD HOWE.
MIDNIGHT--SEPTEMBER 19, 1881
Once in a lifetime, we may see the veil
Tremble and lift, that hides symbolic things;
The Spirit's vision, when the senses fail,
Sweeps the weird meaning that the outlook brings.
Deep in the midst of turmoil, it may be--
A crowded street, a forum, or a field,--
The soul inverts the telescope to see
To-day's events in future's years revealed.
Back from the present, let us look at Rome:
Behold, what Cato meant, what Brutus said,
Hark! the Athenians welcome Cimon home!
How clear they are, those glimpses of the dead!
But we, hard toilers, we who plan and weave
Through common days the web of common life,
What word, alas! shall teach us to receive
The mystic meaning of our peace and strife?
Whence comes our symbol? Surely, God must speak--
No less than He can make us heed or pause:
Self-seekers we, too busy or too weak
To search beyond our daily lives and laws.
From things occult our earth-turned eyes rebel;
No sound of Destiny can reach our ears;
We have no time for dreaming--Hark! a knell--
A knell at midnight! All the nation hears!
A second grievous throb! The dreamers wake--
The merchant's soul forgets his goods and ships;
The weary workmen from their slumbers break;
The women raise their eyes with quivering lips;
The miner rests upon his pick to hear;
The printer's type stops midway from the case;
The solemn sound has reached the roysterer's ear,
And brought the shame and sorrow to his face.
Again it booms! O Mystic Veil, upraise!
--Behold, 'tis lifted! On the darkness drawn,
A picture lined with light! The people's gaze,
From sea to sea, beholds it till the dawn!
A death-bed scene--a sinking sufferer lies,
Their chosen ruler, crowned with love and pride;
Around, his counsellors, with streaming eyes;
His wife, heart-broken, kneeling by his side:
Death's shadow holds her--it will pass too soon;
She weeps in silence--bitterest of tears;
He wanders softly--Nature's kindest boon;
And as he murmurs, all the country hears:
For him the pain is past, the struggle ends;
His cares and honors fade--his younger life
In peaceful Mentor comes, with dear old friends;
His mother's arms take home his dear young wife.
He stands among the students, tall and strong,
And teaches truths republican and grand;
He moves--ah, pitiful--he sweeps along
O'er fields of carnage leading his command!
He speaks to crowded faces--round him surge
Thousands and millions of excited men;
He hears them cheer--sees some vast light emerge--
Is borne as on a tempest--then--ah, then,
The fancies fade, the fever's work is past;
A deepened pang, then recollection's thrill;
He feels the faithful lips that kiss their last,
His heart beats once in answer, and is still!
The curtain falls: but hushed, as if afraid,
The people wait, tear-stained, with heaving breast;
'Twill rise again, they know, when he is laid
With Freedom, in the Capitol, at rest.
JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.
For two days, September 22 and 23, the body lay in state in
the rotunda of the Capitol. Then, in a long train crowded with
the most illustrious of his countrymen, the dead President was
borne to Cleveland, Ohio, and buried on September 26, in a
beautiful cemetery overlooking the waters of Lake Erie.
AT THE PRESIDENT'S GRAVE
All summer long the people knelt
And listened at the sick man's door:
Each pang which that pale sufferer felt
Throbbed through the land from shore to shore;
And as the all-dreaded hour drew nigh,
What breathless watching, night and day!
What tears, what prayers! Great God on high,
Have we forgotten how to pray!
O broken-hearted, widowed one,
Forgive us if we press too near!
Dead is our husband, father, son,--
For we are all one household here.
And not alone here by the sea,
And not in his own land alone,
Are tears of anguish shed with thee--
In this one loss the world is one.
EPITAPH
A man not perfect, but of heart
So high, of such heroic rage,
That even his hopes became a part
Of earth's eternal heritage.
RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
The public rage against the assassin knew no bounds. Only by
the utmost vigilance was his life saved from the attacks upon
it. He was brought to trial and found guilty of murder in
January, 1882, and was executed June 30.
ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD
I
Fallen with autumn's falling leaf
Ere yet his summer's noon was past,
Our friend, our guide, our trusted chief,--
What words can match a woe so vast!
And whose the chartered claim to speak
The sacred grief where all have part,
Where sorrow saddens every cheek
And broods in every aching heart?
Yet Nature prompts the burning phrase
That thrills the hushed and shrouded hall,
The loud lament, the sorrowing praise,
The silent tear that love lets fall.
In loftiest verse, in lowliest rhyme,
Shall strive unblamed the minstrel choir,--
The singers of the new-born time,
And trembling age with outworn lyre.
No room for pride, no place for blame,--
We fling our blossoms on the grave,
Pale,--scentless,--faded,--all we claim,
This only,--what we had we gave.
Ah, could the grief of all who mourn
Blend in one voice its bitter cry,
The wail to heaven's high arches borne
Would echo through the caverned sky.
II
O happiest land, whose peaceful choice
Fills with a breath its empty throne!
God, speaking through thy people's voice,
Has made that voice for once his own.
No angry passion shakes the state
Whose weary servant seeks for rest,
And who could fear that scowling hate
Would strike at that unguarded breast?
He stands, unconscious of his doom,
In manly strength, erect, serene;
Around him Summer spreads her bloom;
He falls,--what horror clothes the scene!
How swift the sudden flash of woe
Where all was bright as childhood's dream!
As if from heaven's ethereal bow
Had leaped the lightning's arrowy gleam.
Blot the foul deed from history's page;
Let not the all-betraying sun
Blush for the day that stains an age
When murder's blackest wreath was won.
III
Pale on his couch the sufferer lies,
The weary battle-ground of pain:
Love tends his pillow; Science tries
Her every art, alas! in vain.
The strife endures how long! how long!
Life, death, seem balanced in the scale,
While round his bed a viewless throng
Await each morrow's changing tale.
In realms the desert ocean parts
What myriads watch with tear-filled eyes,
His pulse-beats echoing in their hearts,
His breathings counted with their sighs!
Slowly the stores of life are spent,
Yet hope still battles with despair;
Will Heaven not yield when knees are bent?
Answer, O thou that hearest prayer!
But silent is the brazen sky;
On sweeps the meteor's threatening train,
Unswerving Nature's mute reply,
Bound in her adamantine chain.
Not ours the verdict to decide
Whom death shall claim or skill shall save;
The hero's life though Heaven denied,
It gave our land a martyr's grave.
Nor count the teaching vainly sent
How human hearts their griefs may share,--
The lesson woman's love has lent,
What hope may do, what faith can bear!
Farewell! the leaf-strown earth enfolds
Our stay, our pride, our hopes, our fears,
And autumn's golden sun beholds
A nation bowed, a world in tears.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
PRESIDENT GARFIELD
"E venni dal martirio a questa pace."
PARADISO, xv, 148.
These words the poet heard in Paradise,
Uttered by one who, bravely dying here
In the true faith, was living in that sphere
Where the celestial cross of sacrifice
Spread its protecting arms athwart the skies;
And set thereon, like jewels crystal clear,
The souls magnanimous, that knew not fear,
Flashed their effulgence on his dazzled eyes.
Ah me! how dark the discipline of pain,
Were not the suffering followed by the sense
Of infinite rest and infinite release!
This is our consolation; and again
A great soul cries to us in our suspense,
"I came from martyrdom unto this peace!"
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
The hundredth anniversary of the surrender of the British at
Yorktown was celebrated on October 19, 1881. The lyric for the
occasion was written by Paul Hamilton Hayne.
YORKTOWN CENTENNIAL LYRIC
[October 19, 1881]
Hark! hark! down the century's long reaching slope
To those transports of triumph, those raptures of hope,
The voices of main and of mountain combined
In glad resonance borne on the wings of the wind,
The bass of the drum and the trumpet that thrills
Through the multiplied echoes of jubilant hills.
And mark how the years melting upward like mist
Which the breath of some splendid enchantment has kissed,
Reveal on the ocean, reveal on the shore
The proud pageant of conquest that graced them of yore,
When blended forever in love as in fame
See, the standard which stole from the starlight its flame,
And type of all chivalry, glory, romance,
The lilies, the luminous lilies of France.
Oh, stubborn the strife ere the conflict was won!
And the wild whirling war wrack half stifled the sun.
The thunders of cannon that boomed on the lea,
But reëchoed far thunders pealed up from the sea,
Where guarding his sea lists, a knight on the waves,
Bold De Grasse kept at bay the bluff bull-dogs of Graves.
The day turned to darkness, the night changed to fire,
Still more fierce waxed the combat, more deadly the ire,
Undimmed by the gloom, in majestic advance,
Oh, behold where they ride o'er the red battle tide,
Those banners united in love as in fame,
The brave standard which drew from the starbeams their flame,
And type of all chivalry, glory, romance,
The lilies, the luminous lilies of France.
No respite, no pause; by the York's tortured flood,
The grim Lion of England is writhing in blood.
Cornwallis may chafe and coarse Tarleton aver,
As he sharpens his broadsword and buckles his spur,
"This blade, which so oft has reaped rebels like grain,
Shall now harvest for death the rude yeomen again."
Vain boast! for ere sunset he's flying in fear,
With the rebels he scouted close, close in his rear,
While the French on his flank hurl such volleys of shot
That e'en Gloucester's redoubt must be growing too hot.
Thus wedded in love as united in fame,
Lo! the standard which stole from the starlight its flame,
And type of all chivalry, glory, romance,
The lilies, the luminous lilies of France.
O morning superb! when the siege reached its close;
See! the sundawn outbloom, like the alchemist's rose!
The last wreaths of smoke from dim trenches upcurled,
Are transformed to a glory that smiles on the world.
Joy, joy! Save the wan, wasted front of the foe,
With his battle-flags furled and his arms trailing low;--
Respect for the brave! In stern silence they yield,
And in silence they pass with bowed heads from the field.
Then triumph transcendent! so Titan of tone
That some vowed it must startle King George on his throne.
When Peace to her own, timed the pulse of the land,
And the war weapon sank from the war-wearied hand,
Young Freedom upborne to the height of the goal
She had yearned for so long with deep travail of soul,
A song of her future raised, thrilling and clear,
Till the woods leaned to hearken, the hill slopes to hear:--
Yet fraught with all magical grandeurs that gleam
On the hero's high hope, or the patriot's dream,
What future, though bright, in cold shadow shall cast
The proud beauty that haloes the brow of the past.
Oh! wedded in love, as united in fame,
See the standard which stole from the starlight its flame,
And type of all chivalry, glory, romance,
The lilies, the luminous lilies of France.
PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.
On May 24, 1883, the great bridge spanning the East River
and connecting Brooklyn with New York City was opened to the
public, having been thirteen years in process of construction.
THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE
[May 24, 1883]
A granite cliff on either shore:
A highway poised in air;
Above, the wheels of traffic roar;
Below, the fleets sail fair;--
And in and out, forevermore,
The surging tides of ocean pour,
And past the towers the white gulls soar,
And winds the sea-clouds bear.
O peerless this majestic street,
This road that leaps the brine!
Upon its heights twin cities meet,
And throng its grand incline,--
To east, to west, with swiftest feet,
Though ice may crash and billows beat,
Though blinding fogs the wave may greet
Or golden summer shine.
Sail up the Bay with morning's beam,
Or rocky Hellgate by,--
Its columns rise, its cables gleam,
Great tents athwart the sky!
And lone it looms, august, supreme,
When, with the splendor of a dream,
Its blazing cressets gild the stream
Till evening shadows fly.
By Nile stand proud the pyramids,
But they were for the dead;
The awful gloom that joy forbids,
The mourners' silent tread,
The crypt, the coffin's stony lids,--
Sad as a soul the maze that thrids
Of dark Amenti, ere it rids
Its way of judgment dread.
This glorious arch, these climbing towers,
Are all for life and cheer!
Part of the New World's nobler dowers;
Hint of millennial year
That comes apace, though evil lowers,--
When loftier aims and larger powers
Will mould and deck this earth of ours,
And heaven at length bring near!
Unmoved its cliffs shall crown the shore;
Its arch the chasm dare;
Its network hang the blue before,
As gossamer in air;
While in and out, forevermore,
The surging tides of ocean pour,
And past its towers the white gulls soar
And winds the sea-clouds bear!
EDNA DEAN PROCTOR.
BROOKLYN BRIDGE
No lifeless thing of iron and stone,
But sentient, as her children are,
Nature accepts you for her own,
Kin to the cataract and the star.
She marks your vast, sufficing plan,
Cable and girder, bolt and rod,
And takes you, from the hand of man,
For some new handiwork of God.
You thrill through all your chords of steel
Responsive to the living sun;
And quickening in your nerves you feel
Life with its conscious currents run.
Your anchorage upbears the march
Of time and the eternal powers.
The sky admits your perfect arch,
The rock respects your stable towers.
CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS.
The first week in September, 1886, a destructive earthquake
shook the eastern portion of the United States, Charleston,
S. C., suffering a tremendous shock which snuffed out scores
of lives and rendered seven eighths of the houses unfit for
habitation.
CHARLESTON
1886
Is this the price of beauty! Fairest, thou,
Of all the cities of the sunrise sea,
Yet thrice art stricken. First, war harried thee;
Then the dread circling tempest drove its plough
Right through thy palaces; and now, O now!
A sound of terror, and thy children flee
Into the night and death. O Deity!
Thou God of war and whirlwind, whose dark brow,
Frowning, makes tremble sea and solid land!
These are thy creatures who to heaven cry
While hell roars 'neath them, and its portals ope;
To thee they call,--to thee who bidst them die,
Who hast forgotten to withhold thy hand,--
For thou, Destroyer, art man's only Hope!
RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
On September 9 and 11, 1886, the American yacht Mayflower
defeated the English yacht Galatea in the international races
for the America's cup.
MAYFLOWER
Thunder our thanks to her--guns, hearts, and lips!
Cheer from the ranks to her,
Shout from the banks to her,--
Mayflower! Foremost and best of our ships.
Mayflower! Twice in the national story
Thy dear name in letters of gold--
Woven in texture that never grows old--
Winning a home and winning glory!
Sailing the years to us, welcomed for aye;
Cherished for centuries, dearest to-day.
Every heart throbs for her, every flag dips--
Mayflower! First and last--best of our ships!
White as a seagull she swept the long passage.
True as the homing-bird flies with its message.
Love her? O, richer than silk every sail of her.
Trust her? more precious than gold every nail of her.
Write we down faithfully every man's part in her;
Greet we all gratefully every true heart in her.
More than a name to us, sailing the fleetest,
Symbol of that which is purest and sweetest.
More than a keel to us, steering the straightest:
Emblem of that which is freest and greatest.
More than a dove-bosomed sail to the windward:
Flame passing on while the night-clouds fly hindward.
Kiss every plank of her! None shall take rank of her;
Frontward or weatherward, none can eclipse.
Thunder our thanks to her! Cheer from the banks to her!
Mayflower! Foremost and best of our ships!
JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.
On October 28, 1886, Bartholdi's statue of Liberty Enlightening
the World, a gift to America from the people of France, was
unveiled on Bedloe's Island, in New York Harbor.
FAIREST OF FREEDOM'S DAUGHTERS
Read at the dedication of the Bartholdi Statue, New York
Harbor, October 28, 1886
Night's diadem around thy head,
The world upon thee gazing,
Beneath the eye of heroes dead
Thy queenly form up-raising.
Lift up, lift up thy torch on high,
Fairest of Freedom's daughters!
Flash it against thine own blue sky,
Flash it across the waters!
Stretch up to thine own woman's height,
Thine eye lit with truth's lustre,
As though from God, Himself a-light,
Earth's hopes around thee cluster.
The stars touch with thy forehead fair;
At them thy torch was lighted.
They grope to find where truth's ways are,
The nations long benighted.
Thou hast the van in earth's proud march,
To thee all nations turning;
Thy torch against thine own blue arch,
In answer to their yearning!
Show them the pathway thou hast trod,
The chains which thou hast broken;
Teach them thy trust in man and God,
The watchwords thou hast spoken.
Not here is heard the Alp-herd's horn,
The mountain stillness breaking;
Nor do we catch the roseate morn,
The Alpine summits waking.
Is Neckar's vale no longer fair,
That German hearts are leaving?
Ah! German hearts from hearthstones tear,
In thy proud star believing.
Has Rhineland lost her grape's perfume,
Her waters green and golden?
And do her castles no more bloom
With legends rare and olden?
Why leave, strong men, the Fatherland?
Why cross the cold blue ocean?
Truth's torch in thine uplifted hand,
Ha! kindles their devotion.
God, home, and country be thy care,
Thou queen of all the ages!
Belting the earth is this one prayer:
Unspotted be thy pages!
Lift up, lift up thy torch on high,
Fairest of Freedom's daughters!
Flash it against thine own blue sky,
Flash it across the waters!
JEREMIAH EAMES RANKIN.
LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD
Warden at ocean's gate,
Thy feet on sea and shore,
Like one the skies await
When time shall be no more!
What splendors crown thy brow?
What bright dread angel Thou,
Dazzling the waves before
Thy station great?
"My name is Liberty!
From out a mighty land
I face the ancient sea,
I lift to God my hand;
By day in Heaven's light,
A pillar of fire by night,
At ocean's gate I stand
Nor bend the knee.
"The dark Earth lay in sleep.
Her children crouched forlorn,
Ere on the western steep
I sprang to height, reborn:
Then what a joyous shout
The quickened lands gave out,
And all the choir of morn
Sang anthems deep.
"Beneath yon firmament.
The New World to the Old
My sword and summons sent,
My azure flag unrolled:
The Old World's hands renew
Their strength; the form ye view
Came from a living mould
In glory blent.
"O ye, whose broken spars
Tell of the storms ye met,
Enter! fear not the bars
Across your pathway set;
Enter at Freedom's porch,
For you I lift my torch,
For you my coronet
Is rayed with stars.
"But ye that hither draw
To desecrate my fee,
Nor yet have held in awe
The justice that makes free,--
Avaunt, ye darkling brood!
By Right my house hath stood:
My name is Liberty,
My throne is Law."
O wonderful and bright,
Immortal Freedom, hail!
Front, in thy fiery might,
The midnight and the gale;
Undaunted on this base
Guard well thy dwelling-place:
Till the last sun grow pale
Let there be Light!
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
THE BARTHOLDI STATUE
1886
The land, that, from the rule of kings,
In freeing us, itself made free,
Our Old World Sister, to us brings
Her sculptured Dream of Liberty:
Unlike the shapes on Egypt's sands
Uplifted by the toil-worn slave,
On Freedom's soil with freemen's hands
We rear the symbol free hands gave.
O France, the beautiful! to thee
Once more a debt of love we owe:
In peace beneath thy Colors Three,
We hail a later Rochambeau!
Rise, stately Symbol! holding forth
Thy light and hope to all who sit
In chains and darkness! Belt the earth
With watch-fires from thy torch up-lit!
Reveal the primal mandate still
Which Chaos heard and ceased to be,
Trace on mid-air th' Eternal Will
In signs of fire: "Let man be free!"
Shine far, shine free, a guiding light
To Reason's ways and Virtue's aim,
A lightning-flash the wretch to smite
Who shields his license with thy name!
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
On September 18, 1887, the one hundredth anniversary of the
adoption of the Constitution of the United States was suitably
observed at Philadelphia. President Grover Cleveland, Justice
Samuel Freeman Miller, and John Adams Kasson delivered
addresses, and "The New Hail Columbia" was sung by a chorus of
two thousand voices.
ADDITIONAL VERSES TO HAIL COLUMBIA
Written at the request of the committee for the Constitutional
Centennial Celebration at Philadelphia, 1887.
Look our ransomed shores around,
Peace and safety we have found!
Welcome, friends who once were foes!
Welcome, friends who once were foes,
To all the conquering years have gained,--
A nation's rights, a race unchained!
Children of the day new-born!
Mindful of its glorious morn,
Let the pledge our fathers signed
Heart to heart forever bind!
While the stars of heaven shall burn,
While the ocean tides return,
Ever may the circling sun
Find the Many still are One!
Graven deep with edge of steel,
Crowned with Victory's crimson seal,
All the world their names shall read!
All the world their names shall read,
Enrolled with his, the Chief that led
The hosts whose blood for us was shed.
Pay our sires their children's debt,
Love and honor, nor forget
Only Union's golden key
Guards the Ark of Liberty!
While the stars of heaven shall burn,
While the ocean tides return,
Ever may the circling sun
Find the Many still are One!
Hail, Columbia! strong and free,
Throned in hearts from sea to sea!
Thy march triumphant still pursue
Thy march triumphant still pursue
With peaceful stride from zone to zone,
Till Freedom finds the world her own!
Blest in Union's holy ties,
Let our grateful song arise,
Every voice its tribute lend,
All in loving chorus blend!
While the stars in heaven shall burn,
While the ocean tides return,
Ever shall the circling sun
Find the Many still are One!
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
Following this came the recital by James Edward Murdock of the
"New National Hymn," the Marine Band leading the people and the
singers in the chorus.
NEW NATIONAL HYMN
Hail, Freedom! thy bright crest
And gleaming shield, thrice blest,
Mirror the glories of a world thine own.
Hail, heaven-born Peace! our sight,
Led by thy gentle light,
Shows us the paths with deathless flowers strewn.
Peace, daughter of a strife sublime,
Abide with us till strife be lost in endless time.
_Chorus_--Thy sun is risen, and shall not set,
Upon thy day divine;
Ages, of unborn ages, yet,
America, are thine.
Her one hand seals with gold
The portals of night's fold,
Her other, the broad gates of dawn unbars;
O'er silent wastes of snows,
Crowning her lofty brows,
Gleams high her diadem of northern stars;
While, clothed in garlands of warm flowers,
Round Freedom's feet the South her wealth of beauty showers.
Sweet is the toil of peace,
Sweet is the year's increase,
To loyal men who live by Freedom's laws;
And in war's fierce alarms
God gives stout hearts and arms
To freemen sworn to save a rightful cause.
Fear none, trust God, maintain the right,
And triumph in unbroken Union's might.
Welded in war's fierce flame,
Forged on the hearth of fame,
The sacred Constitution was ordained;
Tried in the fire of time,
Tempered in woes sublime,
An age was passed and left it yet unstained.
God grant its glories still may shine,
While ages fade, forgotten, in time's slow decline!
Honor the few who shared
Freedom's first fight, and dared
To face war's desperate tide at the full flood;
Who fell on hard-won ground,
And into Freedom's wound
Poured the sweet balsam of their brave hearts' blood.
They fell; but o'er that glorious grave
Floats free the banner of the cause they died to save.
In radiance heavenly fair,
Floats on the peaceful air
That flag that never stooped from victory's pride;
Those stars that softly gleam,
Those stripes that o'er us stream,
In war's grand agony were sanctified;
A holy standard, pure and free,
To light the home of peace, or blaze in victory.
Father, whose mighty power
Shields us through life's short hour,
To Thee we pray,--Bless us and keep us free:
All that is past forgive;
Teach us, henceforth, to live,
That, through our country, we may honor Thee;
And, when this mortal life shall cease,
Take Thou, at last, our souls to Thine eternal peace.
FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD.
On March 15, 1889, a destructive hurricane visited the Samoan
Islands. There were in the harbor of Apia, at the time one
English, three German, and three American war-ships, sent there
to safeguard the interests of their respective countries. The
English ship, the Calliope, succeeded in steaming out of the
harbor, the crew of the American flagship Trenton cheering her
as she passed. The Trenton was wrecked a few minutes later, as
were the five other ships in the harbor.
IN APIA BAY
(_Morituri vos salutamus_)
Ruin and death held sway
That night in Apia Bay,
And smote amid the loud and dreadful gloom.
But, Hearts, no longer weep
The salt unresting sleep
Of the great dead, victorious in their doom.
Vain, vain the strait retreat
That held the fated fleet,
Trapped in the two-fold threat of sea and shore!
Fell reefs on either hand,
And the devouring strand!
Above, below, the tempest's deafening roar!
What mortal hand shall write
The horror of that night,
The desperate struggle in that deadly close,
The yelling of the blast,
The wild surf, white, aghast,
The whelming seas, the thunder and the throes!
How the great cables surged,
The giant engines urged,
As the brave ships the unequal strife waged on!
Not hope, not courage flagged;
But the vain anchors dragged,
Down on the reefs they shattered, and were gone!
And now were wrought the deeds
Whereof each soul that reads
Grows manlier, and burns with prouder breath,--
Heroic brotherhood,
The loving bonds of blood,
Proclaimed from high hearts face to face with death.
At length, the English ship
Her cables had let slip,
Crowded all steam, and steered for the open sea,
Resolved to challenge Fate,
To pass the perilous strait,
And wrench from jaws of ruin Victory.
With well-tried metals strained,
In the storm's teeth she gained,
Foot by slow foot made head, and crept toward life.
Across her dubious way
The good ship Trenton lay,
Helpless, but thrilled to watch the splendid strife.
Helmless she lay, her bulk
A blind and wallowing hulk,
By her strained hawsers only held from wreck,
But dauntless each brave heart
Played his immortal part
In strong endurance on the reeling deck.
They fought Fate inch by inch,--
Could die, but could not flinch;
And, biding the inevitable doom,
They marked the English ship,
Baffling the tempest's grip,
Forge hardly forth from the expected tomb.
Then, with exultant breath,
These heroes waiting death,
Thundered across the storm a peal of cheers,--
To the triumphant brave
A greeting from the grave,
Whose echo shall go ringing down the years.
"To you, who well have won,
From us, whose course is run,
Glad greeting, as we face the undreaded end!"
The memory of those cheers
Shall thrill in English ears
Where'er this English blood and speech extend.
No manlier deed comes down,
Blazoned in broad renown,
From men of old who lived to dare and die!
The old fire yet survives,
Here in our modern lives,
Of splendid chivalry and valor high!
CHARLES GEORGE DOUGLAS ROBERTS.
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE
[March 15, 1889]
We were ordered to Samoa from the coast of Panama,
And for two long months we sailed the unequal sea,
Till we made the horseshoe harbor with its curving coral bar,
Smelt the good green smell of grass and shrub and tree.
We had barely room for swinging with the tide--
There were many of us crowded in the bay:
Three Germans, and the English ship, beside
Our three--and from the Trenton, where she lay,
Through the sunset calms and after,
We could hear the shrill, sweet laughter
Of the children's voices on the shore at play.
We all knew a storm was coming, but, dear God! no man could dream
Of the furious hell-horrors of that day:
Through the roar of winds and waters we could hear wild voices scream--
See the rocking masts reel by us through the spray.
In the gale we drove and drifted helplessly,
With our rudder gone, our engine-fires drowned,
And none might hope another hour to see;
For all the air was desperate with the sound
Of the brave ships rent asunder--
Of the shrieking souls sucked under,
'Neath the waves, where many a good man's grave was found.
About noon, upon our quarter, from the deeper gloom afar,
Came the English man-of-war Calliope:
"We have lost our anchors, comrades, and, though small the chances are,
We must steer for safety and the open sea."
Then we climbed aloft to cheer her as she passed
Through the tempest and the blackness and the foam:
"Now God speed you, though the shout should be our last,
Through the channel where the maddened breakers comb,
Through the wild sea's hill and hollow,
On the path we cannot follow,
To your women and your children and your home."
Oh! remember it, good brothers. We two people speak one tongue,
And your native land was mother to our land;
But the head, perhaps, is hasty when the nation's heart is young,
And we prate of things we do not understand.
But the day when we stood face to face with death
(Upon whose face few men may look and tell),
As long as you could hear, or we had breath,
Four hundred voices cheered you out of hell!
By the will of that stern chorus,
By the motherland which bore us,
Judge if we do not love each other well.
CAROLINE DUER.
On May 31, 1889, western Pennsylvania was visited by one of
the worst catastrophes in the history of the country. A flood
from a broken reservoir overwhelmed Johnstown, Conemaugh, and a
number of smaller towns, destroying over two thousand lives and
property to the value of ten million dollars.
BY THE CONEMAUGH
[May 31, 1889]
Foreboding sudden of untoward change,
A tight'ning clasp on everything held dear,
A moan of waters wild and strange,
A whelming horror near;
And, 'midst the thund'rous din a voice of doom,--
"Make way for me, O Life, for Death make room!
"I come like the whirlwind rude,
'Gainst all thou hast cherished warring;
I come like the flaming flood
From a crater's mouth outpouring;
I come like the avalanche gliding free--
And the Power that sent thee forth, sends me!
"Where thou hast builded with strength secure,
My hand shall spread disaster;
Where thou hast barr'd me, with forethought sure,
Shall ruin flow the faster;
I come to gather where thou hast sowed,--
But I claim of thee nothing thou hast not owed!
"On my mission of mercy forth I go
Where the Lord of Being sends me;
His will is the only will I know,
And my strength is the strength He lends me;
Thy loved ones I hide 'neath my waters dim,
But I cannot hide them away from Him!"
FLORENCE EARLE COATES.
The reservoir was known to be weak, and the people below had
been warned of the danger yet remained where they were. When,
just before the break, Engineer John G. Parke galloped down the
valley, shouting to all to run for their lives, it was too late.
THE MAN WHO RODE TO CONEMAUGH
[May 31, 1889]
Into the town of Conemaugh,
Striking the people's souls with awe,
Dashed a rider, aflame and pale,
Never alighting to tell his tale,
Sitting his big bay horse astride.
"Run for your lives to the hills!" he cried;
"Run to the hills!" was what he said,
As he waved his hand and dashed ahead.
"Run for your lives to the hills!" he cried,
Spurring his horse, whose reeking side
Was flecked with foam as red as flame.
Whither he goes and whence he came
Nobody knows. They see his horse
Plunging on in his frantic course,
Veins distended and nostrils wide,
Fired and frenzied at such a ride.
Nobody knows the rider's name--
Dead forever to earthly fame.
"Run to the hills! to the hills!" he cried;
"Run for your lives to the mountain side!"
"Stop him! he's mad! just look at him go!
'Tain't safe," they said, "to let him ride so."
"He thinks he can scare us," said one, with a laugh,
"But Conemaugh folks don't swallow no chaff;
'Tain't nothing, I'll bet, but the same old leak
In the dam above the South Fork Creek."
Blind to their danger, callous of dread,
They laughed as he left them and dashed ahead.
"Run for your lives to the hills!" he cried,
Lashing his horse in his desperate ride.
Down through the valley the rider passed,
Shouting, and spurring his horse on fast;
But not so fast did the rider go
As the raging, roaring, mighty flow
Of the million feet and the millions more
Of water whose fury he fled before.
On he went, and on it came,
The flood itself a very flame
Of surging, swirling, seething tide,
Mountain high and torrents wide.
God alone might measure the force
Of the Conemaugh flood in its V-shaped course.
Behind him were buried under the flood
Conemaugh town and all who stood
Jeering there at the man who cried,
"Run for your lives to the mountain side!"
On he sped in his fierce, wild ride.
"Run to the hills! to the hills!" he cried.
Nearer, nearer raged the roar
Horse and rider fled before.
Dashing along the valley ridge,
They came at last to the railroad bridge.
The big horse stood, the rider cried,
"Run for your lives to the mountain side!"
Then plunged across, but not before
The mighty, merciless mountain roar
Struck the bridge and swept it away
Like a bit of straw or a wisp of hay.
But over and under and through that tide
The voice of the unknown rider cried,
"Run to the hills! to the hills!" it cried,--
"Run for your lives to the mountain side!"
JOHN ELIOT BOWEN.
It is said that another hero named Daniel Periton rode in front
of the flood giving warning, and was finally caught by it and
drowned.
A BALLAD OF THE CONEMAUGH FLOOD
[May 31, 1889]
The windows of Heaven were open wide,
The storm cloud broke, and the people cried,
Will Conemaugh dam hold out?
But the great folks down at Johnstown played,
They ate, they drank, they were nought afraid,
For Conemaugh dam holds Conemaugh lake,
By Conemaugh dam their pleasure they take,
Fine catching are Conemaugh trout.
The four mile lake at the back of its wall
Is growing to five, and the rains still fall,
And the flood by night and by day
Is burrowing deep thro' buttress and mound,
Fresh waters spring and spurt from the ground;
While God is thundering out of His cloud
The fountain voices are crying aloud,
Away to the hills! away!
Away to the hills! leave altar and shrine,
Away to the hills! leave table and wine,
Away from the trade and your tills;
Let the strong man speed with the weakest child,
And the mother who just on her babe has smiled
Be carried, leave only the dead on their biers,
No time for the tomb, and no time for tears;
Away, away to the hills!
Daniel Periton heard the wail
Of the waters gathering over the vale,
With sorrow for city and field,--
Felt already the mountain quake
'Twixt living and dead. For the brethren's sake
Daniel Periton dared to ride
Full in front of the threatening tide,
And what if the dam do yield?
To a man it is given but once to die,
Though the flood break forth he will raise his cry
For the thousands there in the town.
At least, some child may be saved by his voice,
Some lover may still in the sun rejoice,
Some man that has fled, when he wins his breath,
Shall bless the rider who rode thro' death,
For his fellows' life gave his own.
He leapt to his horse that was black as night,
He turned not left and he turned not right,
Down to the valley he dashed;
He heard behind him a thunderous boom,
The dam had burst and he knew his doom;
"Fly, fly for your lives!" it was all he spoke;
"Fly, fly, for the Conemaugh dam has broke!"
And the cataract after him crashed.
They saw a man with the God in his face,
Pale from the desperate whirlwind pace,
They heard an angel cry.
And the steed's black mane was flecked as he flew,
And its flanks were red with the spur's red dew,
Into the city and out of the gate,
Rider and ridden were racing with fate,
Wild with one agony.
"Flash on the news that the dam has burst,"
And one looked forth, and she knew the worst,
"My last message!" she said.
The words at her will flashed on before
Periton's call and the torrent's roar;
And not in vain had Periton cried,
His heart had caught a brave heart to his side,
As bold for the saving he sped.
The flood came down and its strong arms took
The city, and all together shook,
Tower and church and street,
Like a pack of cards that a player may crush,
The houses fell in the whirlpool rush,
Rose and floated and jammed at the last,
Then a fierce flame fed by the deluge blast
Wove them a winding-sheet.
God have mercy! was ever a pyre
Lit like that of the flood's fierce fire!
Cattle and men caught fast,
Prisoners held between life and death,
While the flame struck down with its sulphurous breath,
And the flood struck up with its strong, cold hand,
No hope from the water, no help from the land,
And the torrent thundering past!
Daniel Periton, still he rides,
By the heaving flank and the shortening strides,
The race must be well-nigh won.
"Away to the hills!" but the cataract's bound
Has caught and has dashed him from saddle to ground,--
And the man who saw the end of the race,
Saw a dark, dead horse, and a pale dead face,
Did they hear Heaven's great "Well done"?
HARDWICK DRUMMOND RAWNSLEY.
In charge of the telegraph office at Johnstown was a Mrs.
Ogle. She stayed at her post, sending message after message of
warning down the valley until she herself was overwhelmed and
swept away.
CONEMAUGH
"Fly to the mountain! Fly!"
Terribly rang the cry.
The electric soul of the wire
Quivered like sentient fire.
The soul of the woman who stood
Face to face with the flood
Answered to the shock
Like the eternal rock.
For she stayed
With her hand on the wire,
Unafraid,
Flashing the wild word down
Into the lower town.
Is there a lower yet and another?
Into the valley she and none other
Can hurl the warning cry:
"Fly to the mountain! Fly!
The water from Conemaugh
Has opened its awful jaw.
The dam is wide
On the mountain-side!"
"Fly for _your_ life, oh, fly!"
They said.
She lifted her noble head:
"I can stay at my post, and die."
Face to face with duty and death,
Dear is the drawing of human breath.
"Steady, my hand! Hold fast
To the trust upon thee cast.
Steady, my wire! Go, say
That death is on the way!
Steady, strong wire! Go, save!
Grand is the power you have!"
Grander the soul that can stand
Behind the trembling hand;
Grander the woman who dares;
Glory her high name wears.
"_This message is my last!_"
Shot over the wire, and passed
To the listening ear of the land.
The mountain and the strand
Reverberate the cry:
"_Fly for your lives, oh, fly!
I stay at my post, and die._"
The torrent took her. God knows all.
Fiercely the savage currents fall
To muttering calm. Men count their dead.
The June sky smileth overhead.
God's will we neither read nor guess.
Poorer by one more hero less,
We bow the head, and clasp the hand:
"Teach us, altho' we die, to stand."
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD.
On May 1, 1893, the most remarkable exposition ever held in
America opened at Chicago, to celebrate the four hundredth
anniversary of the discovery of America. The group of
exposition buildings soon became known as "The White City."
"THE WHITE CITY"
I
Greece was; Greece is no more.
Temple and town
Have crumbled down;
Time is the fire that hath consumed them all.
Statue and wall
In ruin strew the universal floor.
II
Greece lives, but Greece no more!
Its ashes breed
The undying seed
Blown westward till, in Rome's imperial towers,
Athens reflowers;
Still westward--lo, a veiled and virgin shore!
III
Say not, "Greece is no more."
Through the clear morn
On light winds borne
Her white-winged soul sinks on the New World's breast.
Ah! happy West--
Greece flowers anew, and all her temples soar!
IV
One bright hour, then no more
Shall to the skies
These columns rise.
But though art's flower shall fade, again the seed
Onward shall speed,
Quickening the land from lake to ocean's roar.
V
Art lives, though Greece may never
From the ancient mold
As once of old
Exhale to heaven the inimitable bloom;
Yet from that tomb
Beauty walks forth to light the world forever!
RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
On February 2, 1894, the famous old corvette, Kearsarge, which
destroyed the Confederate cruiser Alabama, off Cherbourg,
during the Civil War, was wrecked on Roncador reef in the
Caribbean Sea.
THE KEARSARGE
[February 2, 1894]
In the gloomy ocean bed
Dwelt a formless thing, and said,
In the dim and countless eons long ago,
"I will build a stronghold high,
Ocean's power to defy,
And the pride of haughty man to lay low."
Crept the minutes for the sad,
Sped the cycles for the glad,
But the march of time was neither less nor more;
While the formless atom died,
Myriad millions by its side,
And above them slowly lifted Roncador.
Roncador of Caribee,
Coral dragon of the sea,
Ever sleeping with his teeth below the wave;
Woe to him who breaks the sleep!
Woe to them who sail the deep!
Woe to ship and man that fear a shipman's grave!
Hither many a galleon old,
Heavy-keeled with guilty gold,
Fled before the hardy rover smiting sore;
But the sleeper silent lay
Till the preyer and his prey
Brought their plunder and their bones to Roncador.
Be content, O conqueror!
Now our bravest ship of war,
War and tempest who had often braved before,
All her storied prowess past,
Strikes her glorious flag at last
To the formless thing that builded Roncador.
JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE.
In 1896 Tennessee celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of
her admission to the Union, by an exposition held at Nashville.
TENNESSEE
PRIZE CENTENNIAL ODE
[June 1, 1896]
She is touching the cycle,--her tender tread
Is soft on the hearts of her hallowed dead,
And she proudly stands where her sons have bled
For God and Tennessee;
Where the love of her women set the seal
Of the warrior's faith for the country's weal,
With hand on the rifle and hand on the wheel,
By the altars of Tennessee.
They have builded well for the niche of fame,
Through the sleet of want and the heat of blame,
But the courage of heroes tried the flame,
As they builded Tennessee.
'Twas up to the port-holes and down in the dust,
Not the weight of might, but the force of must,
With faith and rifle-bore free from rust,
They were building Tennessee.
'Twas up in the saddle and off to the fight,
Where arrow and tomahawk shrieked in the light;
But the sinews of pioneers won for the right,--
The bulwarks of Tennessee.
* * * * *
She was true when they pressed like a shadowy fate,--
Her royal foes at her unbarred gate,--
And as true when were menaced her Rights of State,--
The mother,--Tennessee.
And she gave of her life for the stars and bars,
As she gave of her sons for the earlier wars,
And the breast of her motherhood wears the scars,
For the manhood of Tennessee.
But she wrought again, in the strength of might,
In the face of defeat and a yielded right,
The Cloth of Gold from the loom of night,--
The mantle of Tennessee.
She has given all that she held most dear,
With a Spartan hope and a Spartan fear,--
Crowned in her statehood "Volunteer,"--
Glorious Tennessee!
She has rounded the cycle,--the tale is told;
The circlet is iron, the clasp is gold;
And the leaves of a wonderful past unfold
The garland of Tennessee.
And her garments gleam in the sunlit years,
And the songs of her children fill her ears;
And the listening heart of the great world hears
The pæans of Tennessee!
VIRGINIA FRASER BOYLE.
On May 31, 1897, a monument to the memory of Robert Gould Shaw,
who fell at the head of his colored regiment during the Civil
War, was unveiled on Boston Common. The monument, designed by
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, is perhaps the most noteworthy of its
kind in America.
AN ODE
ON THE UNVEILING OF THE SHAW MEMORIAL ON BOSTON COMMON
May 31, 1897
I
Not with slow, funereal sound
Come we to this sacred ground;
Not with wailing fife and solemn muffled drum,
Bringing a cypress wreath
To lay, with bended knee,
On the cold brows of Death--
Not so, dear God, we come,
But with the trumpets' blare
And shot-torn battle-banners flung to air,
As for a victory!
Hark to the measured tread of martial feet,
The music and the murmurs of the street!
No bugle breathes this day
Disaster and retreat!--
Hark, how the iron lips
Of the great battle-ships
Salute the City from her azure Bay!
II
Time was--time was, ah, unforgotten years!--
We paid our hero tribute of our tears.
But now let go
All sounds and signs and formulas of woe:
'Tis Life, not Death, we celebrate;
To Life, not Death, we dedicate
This storied bronze, whereon is wrought
The lithe immortal figure of our thought,
To show forever to men's eyes,
Our children's children's children's eyes,
How once he stood
In that heroic mood,
He and his dusky braves
So fain of glorious graves!--
One instant stood, and then
Drave through that cloud of purple steel and flame,
Which wrapt him, held him, gave him not again,
But in its trampled ashes left to Fame
An everlasting name!
III
That was indeed to live--
At one bold swoop to wrest
From darkling death the best
That death to life can give.
He fell as Roland fell
That day at Roncevaux,
With foot upon the ramparts of the foe!
A pæan, not a knell,
For heroes dying so!
No need for sorrow here,
No room for sigh or tear,
Save such rich tears as happy eyelids know.
See where he rides, our Knight!
Within his eyes the light
Of battle, and youth's gold about his brow;
Our Paladin, our Soldier of the Cross,
Not weighing gain with loss--
World-loser, that won all
Obeying duty's call!
Not his, at peril's frown,
A pulse of quicker beat;
Not his to hesitate
And parley hold with Fate,
But proudly to fling down
His gauntlet at her feet.
O soul of loyal valor and white truth,
Here, by this iron gate,
Thy serried ranks about thee as of yore,
Stand thou for evermore
In thy undying youth!
The tender heart, the eagle eye!
Oh, unto him belong
The homages of Song;
Our praises and the praise
Of coming days
To him belong--
To him, to him, the dead that shall not die!
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.
The years 1897 and 1898 witnessed a great rush of gold-seekers
to Alaska, where placer gold in large quantities had been
discovered, the year before, in the Yukon district on Klondike
Creek.
THE KLONDIKE
[1898]
Never mind the day we left, or the way the women clung to us;
All we need now is the last way they looked at us.
Never mind the twelve men there amid the cheering--
Twelve men or one man, 'twill soon be all the same;
For this is what we know: we are five men together,
Five left o' twelve men to find the golden river.
Far we came to find it out, but the place was here for all of us;
Far, far we came, and here we have the last of us.
We that were the front men, we that would be early,
We that had the faith, and the triumph in our eyes:
We that had the wrong road, twelve men together,--
Singing when the devil sang to find the golden river.
Say the gleam was not for us, but never say we doubted it;
Say the wrong road was right before we followed it.
We that were the front men, fit for all forage,--
Say that while we dwindle we are front men still;
For this is what we know to-night: we're starving here together--
Starving on the wrong road to find the golden river.
Wrong, we say, but wait a little: hear him in the corner there;
He knows more than we, and he'll tell us if we listen there--
He that fought the snow-sleep less than all the others
Stays awhile yet, and he knows where he stays:
Foot and hand a frozen clout, brain a freezing feather,
Still he's here to talk with us and to the golden river.
"Flow," he says, "and flow along, but you cannot flow away from us;
All the world's ice will never keep you far from us;
Every man that heeds your call takes the way that leads him--
The one way that's his way, and lives his own life:
Starve or laugh, the game goes on, and on goes the river;
Gold or no, they go their way--twelve men together.
"Twelve," he says, "who sold their shame for a lure you call too fair for
them--
You that laugh and flow to the same word that urges them:
Twelve who left the old town shining in the sunset,
Left the weary street and the small safe days:
Twelve who knew but one way out, wide the way or narrow:
Twelve who took the frozen chance and laid their lives on yellow.
"Flow by night and flow by day, nor ever once be seen by them;
Flow, freeze, and flow, till time shall hide the bones of them:
Laugh and wash their names away, leave them all forgotten,
Leave the old town to crumble where it sleeps;
Leave it there as they have left it, shining in the valley,--
Leave the town to crumble down and let the women marry.
"Twelve of us or five," he says, "we know the night is on us now:
Five while we last, and we may as well be thinking now:
Thinking each his own thought, knowing, when the light comes,
Five left or none left, the game will not be lost.
Crouch or sleep, we go the way, the last way together:
Five or none, the game goes on, and on goes the river.
"For after all that we have done and all that we have failed to do,
Life will be life and the world will have its work to do:
Every man who follows us will heed in his own fashion
The calling and the warning and the friends who do not know:
Each will hold an icy knife to punish his heart's lover,
And each will go the frozen way to find the golden river."
There you hear him, all he says, and the last we'll ever get from him.
Now he wants to sleep, and that will be the best for him.
Let him have his own way--no, you needn't shake him--
Your own turn will come, so let the man sleep.
For this is what we know: we are stalled here together--
Hands and feet and hearts of us, to find the golden river.
And there's a quicker way than sleep?... Never mind the looks of him:
All he needs now is a finger on the eyes of him.
You there on the left hand, reach a little over--
Shut the stars away, or he'll see them all night:
He'll see them all night and he'll see them all to-morrow,
Crawling down the frozen sky, cold and hard and yellow.
Won't you move an inch or two--to keep the stars away from him?
--No, he won't move, and there's no need of asking him.
Never mind the twelve men, never mind the women;
Three while we last, we'll let them all go;
And we'll hold our thoughts north while we starve here together,
Looking each his own way to find the golden river.
EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON.
CHAPTER V
THE WAR WITH SPAIN
For three centuries and a half, Spain held possession of
the island of Cuba, although she had lost, long before, her
possessions in North and South America. The Cubans desired
freedom, for the Spanish yoke was a galling one, and as early
as 1822 sympathy with this desire was openly expressed in the
United States.
APOSTROPHE TO THE ISLAND OF CUBA
[November, 1822]
There is blood on thy desolate shore,
Thou island of plunder and slaves!
Thy billows are purpled with gore,
And murder has crimsoned thy waves;
The vengeance of nations will come,
And wrath shall be rained on thy head,
And in terror thy voice shall be dumb,
When they ask for their brothers who bled.
Thy hand was not stirred, when their life-blood was spilt;
And therefore that hand must partake in the guilt.
Thou art guilty or weak,--and the rod
Should be wrenched from thy palsied hand;
By the pirate thy green fields are trod,
And his steps have polluted thy land;
Unmoved is thy heart and thine eye,
When our dear ones are tortured and slain;
But their blood with a terrible cry,
Calls on vengeance, and calls not in vain;
If Europe regard not--our land shall awake,
And thy walls and thy turrets shall tremble and shake.
The voice of a world shall be heard,
And thy faith shall be tried by the call;
And that terrible voice shall be feared,
And obeyed--or the proud one shall fall.
Enough of our life has been shed,
In watching and fighting for thee;
If thy foot linger still--on thy head
The guilt and the vengeance shall be:
We have sworn that the spirit of ALLEN shall lead,
And our wrath shall not rest, till we finish the deed.
JAMES GATES PERCIVAL.
The people of Cuba revolted against their Spanish rulers in
1848, and kept up a guerilla warfare for some years. In August,
1851, a filibustering expedition, led by Narciso Lopez, sailed
from New Orleans. The expedition was captured, and most of its
members were executed, among them Lopez himself, and Colonel
William L. Crittenden, of Kentucky, who, with fifty others, was
shot at Havana, August 16.
THE GALLANT FIFTY-ONE
WHO FORMED PART OF THE LOPEZ EXPEDITION AND WERE EXECUTED BY
THE SPANISH AUTHORITIES IN HAVANA
[August 16, 1851]
Freedom called them--up they rose,
Grasped their swords and showered blows
On the heads of Freedom's foes--
And Freedom's foes alone.
Fate decreed that they should die;
Pitying angels breathed a sigh;
Freedom wildly wept on high,
For the gallant Fifty-one!
There they stood in proud array;
None for mercy there would pray;
None would coward looks betray--
All stood forth with fearless eye,
Showing by their dauntless air,
What their noble souls could dare;
Showing to the tyrants there,
How Freedom's sons could die.
None there strove their fate to shun--
Gallant band of Fifty-one!
Then a voice the stillness broke:
'Twas their gallant leader spoke,
Scorning to receive Death's stroke,
Kneeling humbly on the sod!
Gazing calmly on the dead,
Whose life-blood had just been shed,
Proudly then the words he said,
"Americans kneel but to God!"
Perished thus Kentucky's son--
Leader of the Fifty-one.
Rejoice! sons of Thermopylæ!
Kindred spirits join with thee,
Who fell in fight for Liberty,
For Freedom's sacred name.
Future days their deeds shall tell,
How they nobly fought and fell,
Youthful bosoms proudly swell
At mention of their fame--
Rays of light from Freedom's sun,
Gallant band of Fifty-one!
Honor's rays will ever shed
Glory 'round their hallowed bed.
Though their hearts are cold and dead,
Though their sands of life have run,
Still their names revered will be,
Among the noble and the free--
Glorious sons of Liberty;
Gallant band of Fifty-one!
HENRY LYNDEN FLASH.
Spain at last found it necessary to put the whole island under
martial law, and American sympathy grew more outspoken.
CUBA
[1870]
Is it naught? Is it naught
That the South-wind brings her wail to our shore,
That the spoilers compass our desolate sister?
Is it naught? Must we say to her, "Strive no more,"
With the lips wherewith we loved her and kissed her?
With the mocking lips wherewith we said,
"Thou art the dearest and fairest to us
Of all the daughters the sea hath bred,
Of all green-girdled isles that woo us!"
Is it naught?
Must ye wait? Must ye wait,
Till they ravage her gardens of orange and palm,
Till her heart is dust, till her strength is water?
Must ye see them trample her, and be calm
As priests when a virgin is led to slaughter?
Shall they smite the marvel of all lands,--
The nation's longing, the Earth's completeness,--
On her red mouth dropping myrrh, her hands
Filled with fruitage and spice and sweetness?
Must ye wait?
In the day, in the night,
In the burning day, in the dolorous night,
Her sun-browned cheeks are stained with weeping.
Her watch-fires beacon the misty height:--
Why are her friends and lovers sleeping?
"Ye, at whose ear the flatterer bends,
Who were my kindred before all others,--
Hath he set your hearts afar, my friends?
Hath he made ye alien, my brothers,
Day and night?"
Hear ye not? Hear ye not
From the hollow sea the sound of her voice;
The passionate far-off tone which sayeth:
"Alas, my brothers! alas, what choice,--
The lust that shameth, the sword that slayeth?
They bind me! they rend my delicate locks;
They shred the beautiful robes I won me!
My round limbs bleed on the mountain rocks:
Save me, ere they have quite undone me!"
Hear ye not?
Speak at last! Speak at last!
In the might of your strength, in the strength of your right,
Speak out at last to the treacherous spoiler!
Say: "Will ye harry her in our sight?
Ye shall not trample her down, nor soil her!
Loose her bonds! let her rise in her loveliness,--
Our virginal sister; or, if ye shame her,
Dark Amnon shall rue for her sore distress,
And her sure revenge shall be that of Tamar!"
Speak at last!
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
Then in 1873 came what was certain to come, sooner or later, an
outrage by Spain against the United States. The Virginius, a
vessel of American register, was captured on the high seas by a
Spanish gunboat, taken to a Cuban port, and some fifty of her
officers and crew, Americans for the most part, summarily shot.
America was wild with rage, but Spain was permitted to settle
by paying an indemnity.
THE GOSPEL OF PEACE
[1873]
Ay, let it rest! And give us peace.
'Tis but another blot
On Freedom's fustian flag, and gold
Will gild the unclean spot.
Yes, fold the hands, and bear the wrong
As Christians over-meek,
And wipe away the bloody stain,
And turn the other cheek.
What boots the loss of freemen's blood
Beside imperilled gold?
Is honor more than merchandise?
And cannot pride be sold?
Let Cuba groan, let patriots fall;
Americans may die;
Our flag may droop in foul disgrace,
But "Peace!" be still our cry.
Ay, give us peace! And give us truth
To nature, to resign
The counterfeit which Freedom wears
Upon her banner fine.
Remove the Stars,--they light our shame;
But keep the Stripes of gore
And craven White, to tell the wrong
A prudent nation bore.
JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE.
The insurrection in Cuba dragged on, its horrors steadily
increasing, and at last, in 1875, the American government
intimated that if Spain did not stop the war, foreign
intervention might become necessary. Spain took the hint and
ended the struggle by granting Cuba certain reforms.
CUBA
Isle of a summer sea,
Fragrant with Eden's flowers,
God meant thee to be free,
And wills thee to be _ours_!
The blood of generous hearts
Has freely drenched thy soil;
That blood but strength imparts,
Which tyrants cannot foil!
Within thy fair retreat,
'Mid victory and flame,
Thy sons shall yet repeat
Huzzas in Freedom's name!
Yet, where his ashes rest,
Whose eye revealed a world,
From towers and mountain crest,
Our flag shall be unfurled!
In truth, it is but just,
That Freedom's hand should hold,
Confided to her trust,
The key to lands of gold!
HARVEY RICE.
But with a cynical disregard of good faith, Spain kept only
such of her promises as she pleased; increased abuses followed,
and in 1895 revolution flamed out again. Under such leaders
as Gomez, Maceo, and Garcia, the revolutionists soon gained
control of most of the provinces.
CUBA TO COLUMBIA
[April, 1896]
A voice went over the waters--
A stormy edge of the sea--
Fairest of Freedom's daughters,
Have you no help for me?
Do you not hear the rusty chain
Clanking about my feet?
Have you not seen my children slain,
Whether in cell or street?
Oh, if you were sad as I,
And I as you were strong,
You would not have to call or cry--
You would not suffer long!
"Patience?"--have I not learned it,
Under the crushing years?
Freedom--have I not earned it,
Toiling with blood and tears?
"Not of you?"--my banners wave
Not on Egyptian shore,
Or by Armenia's mammoth grave--
But at your very door!
Oh, if you were needy as I,
And I as you were strong,
You should not suffer, bleed, and die,
Under the hoofs of wrong!
Is it that you have never
Felt the oppressor's hand,
Fighting, with fond endeavor,
To cling to your own sweet land?
Were you not half dismayed,
There in the century's night,
Till to your view a sister's aid
Came, like a flash of light?
Oh, what gift could ever be grand
Enough to pay the debt,
If out of the starry Western land,
Should come my Lafayette!
WILL CARLETON.
American sympathy was soon awakened, and grew rapidly in
strength. This was increased when Spain placed Valeriano Weyler
in command in Cuba. Weyler had an evil reputation for cruelty
and extortion, and at once proceeded to make it more evil by
exterminating the "pacificos," or quiet people who were taking
no active part in the war.
CUBA LIBRE
Comes a cry from Cuban water--
From the warm, dusk Antilles--
From the lost Atlanta's daughter,
Drowned in blood as drowned in seas;
Comes a cry of purpled anguish--
See her struggles, hear her cries!
Shall she live, or shall she languish?
Shall she sink, or shall she rise?
She shall rise, by all that's holy!
She shall live and she shall last;
Rise as we, when crushed and lowly,
From the blackness of the past.
Bid her strike! Lo, it is written
Blood for blood and life for life.
Bid her smite, as she is smitten;
Stars and stripes were born of strife.
Once we flashed her lights of freedom,
Lights that dazzled her dark eyes
Till she could but yearning heed them,
Reach her hands and try to rise.
Then they stabbed her, choked her, drowned her
Till we scarce could hear a note.
Ah! these rusting chains that bound her!
Oh! these robbers at her throat!
And the kind who forged these fetters?
Ask five hundred years for news.
Stake and thumbscrew for their betters!
Inquisitions! Banished Jews!
Chains and slavery! What reminder
Of one red man in that land?
Why, these very chains that bind her
Bound Columbus, foot and hand!
Shall she rise as rose Columbus,
From his chains, from shame and wrong--
Rise as Morning, matchless, wondrous--
Rise as some rich morning song--
Rise a ringing song and story,
Valor, Love personified?
Stars and stripes espouse her glory,
Love and Liberty allied.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
The situation of Americans in Havana began to cause uneasiness,
and it was decided to send a ship of war to that port. The
battleship Maine was selected for this duty, and reached Havana
on the morning of January 24, 1898.
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS[14]
Untrammelled Giant of the West,
With all of Nature's gifts endowed,
With all of Heaven's mercies blessed,
Nor of thy power unduly proud--
Peerless in courage, force, and skill,
And godlike in thy strength of will,--
Before thy feet the ways divide:
One path leads up to heights sublime;
The other downward slopes, where bide
The refuse and the wrecks of Time.
Choose then, nor falter at the start,
O choose the nobler path and part!
Be thou the guardian of the weak,
Of the unfriended, thou the friend;
No guerdon for thy valor seek,
No end beyond the avowèd end.
Wouldst thou thy godlike power preserve,
Be godlike in the will to serve!
JOSEPH B. GILDER.
On the morning of February 16, 1898, the news flashed over the
country that on the previous evening the Maine had been blown
up at her anchorage, and that two hundred and sixty-four men
and two officers had been killed.
THE MEN OF THE MAINE
[February 15, 1898]
Not in the dire, ensanguined front of war,
Conquered or conqueror,
'Mid the dread battle-peal, did they go down
To the still under-seas, with fair Renown
To weave for them the hero-martyr's crown.
They struck no blow
'Gainst an embattled foe;
With valiant-hearted Saxon hardihood
They stood not as the Essex sailors stood,
So sore bestead in that far Chilian bay;
Yet no less faithful they,
These men who, in a passing of the breath,
Were hurtled upon death.
No warning the salt-scented sea-wind bore,
No presage whispered from the Cuban shore
Of the appalling fate
That in the tropic night-time lay in wait
To bear them whence they shall return no more.
Some lapsed from dreams of home and love's clear star
Into a realm where dreams eternal are;
And some into a world of wave and flame
Wherethrough they came
To living agony that no words can name.
Tears for them all,
And the low-tunèd dirge funereal!
Their place is now
With those who wear, green-set about the brow,
The deathless immortelles,--
The heroes torn and scarred
Whose blood made red the barren ocean dells,
Fighting with him the gallant Ranger bore,
Daring to do what none had dared before,
To wave the New World banner, freedom-starred,
At England's very door!
Yea, with such noble ones their names shall stand
As those who heard the dying Lawrence speak
His burning words upon the Chesapeake,
And grappled in the hopeless hand-to-hand;
With those who fell on Erie and Champlain
Beneath the pouring, pitiless battle-rain:
With such as these, our lost men of the Maine!
What though they faced no storm of iron hail
That freedom and the right might still prevail?
The path of duty it was theirs to tread
To death's dark vale through ways of travail led,
And they are ours--our dead!
If it be true that each loss holds a gain,
It must be ours through saddened eyes to see
From out this tragic holocaust of pain
The whole land bound in closer amity!
CLINTON SCOLLARD.
[14] Copyright, 1900, by Harper & Brothers.
THE WORD OF THE LORD FROM HAVANA
[February 16, 1898]
Thus spake the Lord:
Because ye have not heard,
Because ye have given no heed
To my people in their need,
Because the oppressed cried
From the dust where he died,
And ye turned your face away
From his cry in that day,
Because ye have bought and sold
That which is above gold,
Because your brother is slain
While ye get you drunk with gain,
(Behold, these are my people, I have brought them to birth,
On whom the mighty have trod,
The kings of the earth,
Saith the Lord God!)
Because ye have fawned and bowed down
Lest the spoiler frown,
And the wrongs that the spoiled have borne
Ye have held in scorn,
Therefore with rending and flame
I have marred and smitten you,
Therefore I have given you to shame,
That the nations shall spit on you.
Therefore my Angel of Death
Hath stretched out his hand on you,
Therefore I speak in my wrath,
Laying command on you;
(Once have I bared my sword,
And the kings of the earth gave a cry;
Twice have I bared my sword,
That the kings of the earth should die;
Thrice shall I bare my sword,
And ye shall know my name, that it is I!)
Ye who held peace less than right
When a king laid a pitiful tax on you,
Hold not your hand from the fight
When freedom cries under the axe on you!
(I who called France to you, call you to Cuba in turn!
Repay--lest I cast you adrift and you perish astern!)
Ye who made war that your ships
Should lay to at the beck of no nation,
Make war now on Murder, that slips
The leash of her hounds of damnation!
Ye who remembered the Alamo,
Remember the Maine!
RICHARD HOVEY.
HALF-MAST
[February 16, 1898]
On every schoolhouse, ship, and staff
From 'Frisco clear to Marblehead,
Let droop the starry banner now,
In sorrow for our sailors dead.
Half-mast! Half-mast! o'er all the land;
The verdict wait; your wrath restrain;
Half-mast for all that gallant band--
The sailors of the Maine!
Not till a treachery is proved
His sword the patriot soldier draws;
War is the last alternative--
Be patient till ye know the cause.
Meanwhile--Half-mast o'er all the land!
The verdict wait; your wrath restrain;
Half-mast! for all that gallant band--
The martyrs of the Maine!
LLOYD MIFFLIN.
THE FIGHTING RACE
[February 16, 1898]
"Read out the names!" and Burke sat back,
And Kelly drooped his head,
While Shea--they call him Scholar Jack--
Went down the list of the dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
Carpenters, coal passers--all.
Then, knocking the ashes from out his pipe,
Said Burke in an offhand way:
"We're all in that dead man's list by Cripe!
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here's to the Maine, and I'm sorry for Spain,"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.
"Wherever there's Kellys there's trouble," said Burke.
"Wherever fighting's the game,
Or a spice of danger in grown man's work."
Said Kelly, "you'll find my name."
"And do we fall short," said Burke, getting mad,
"When it's touch and go for life?"
Said Shea, "It's thirty-odd years, bedad,
Since I charged to drum and fife
Up Marye's Heights, and my old canteen
Stopped a rebel ball on its way;
There were blossoms of blood on our sprigs of green--
Kelly and Burke and Shea--
And the dead didn't brag." "Well, here's to the flag!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.
"I wish 'twas in Ireland, for there's the place,"
Said Burke, "that we'd die by right,
In the cradle of our soldier race,
After one good stand-up fight.
My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill,
And fighting was not his trade;
But his rusty pike's in the cabin still,
With Hessian blood on the blade."
"Aye, aye," said Kelly, "the pikes were great
When the word was 'clear the way!'
We were thick on the roll in ninety-eight--
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here's to the pike and the sword and the like!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.
And Shea, the scholar, with rising joy,
Said, "We were at Ramillies;
We left our bones at Fontenoy
And up in the Pyrenees;
Before Dunkirk, on Landen's plain,
Cremona, Lille, and Ghent;
We're all over Austria, France, and Spain,
Wherever they pitched a tent.
We've died for England from Waterloo
To Egypt and Dargai;
And still there's enough for a corps or crew,
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here's to good honest fighting blood!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.
"Oh, the fighting races don't die out,
If they seldom die in bed,
For love is first in their hearts, no doubt,"
Said Burke; then Kelly said:
"When Michael, the Irish Archangel, stands,
The angel with the sword,
And the battle-dead from a hundred lands
Are ranged in one big horde,
Our line, that for Gabriel's trumpet waits,
Will stretch three deep that day,
From Jehoshaphat to the Golden Gates--
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here's thank God for the race and the sod!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.
JOSEPH I. C. CLARKE.
A wave of fierce wrath swept over the American people; but
Captain Sigsbee, of the destroyed ship, asked that judgment be
suspended until the cause of the accident had been investigated.
ON THE EVE OF WAR
O God of Battles, who art still
The God of Love, the God of Rest,
Subdue thy people's fiery will,
And quell the passions in their breast!
Before we bathe our hands in blood
We lift them to thy Holy Rood.
The waiting nations hold their breath
To catch the dreadful battle-cry;
And in the silence as of death
The fateful hours go softly by.
Oh, hear thy people where they pray,
And shrive our souls before the fray!
Before the sun of peace shall set,
We kneel apart a solemn while;
Pity the eyes with sorrow wet,
But pity most the lips that smile.
The night comes fast; we hear afar
The baying of the wolves of war.
Not lightly, oh, not lightly, Lord,
Let this our awful task begin;
Speak from thy throne a warning word
Above the angry factions' din.
If _this_ be thy Most Holy will,
Be with us still,--be with us still!
DANSKE DANDRIDGE.
Good Friday, 1898.
Spain, without waiting for investigation, announced that the
Maine had been blown up by an explosion of her magazines, due
to the carelessness of her officers. The American people waited
in ominous silence for the investigation to be concluded.
TO SPAIN--A LAST WORD