Chapter IV: Part 4

Heroes without hands to waver, heroes without hearts to quail,
There they sank the bulky collier ’mid the hurtling Spanish hail;
Long shall float our starry banner if such lads beneath it sail!

_Hail to Hobson! hail to Hobson! hail to all the valiant set!_
_Clausen, Kelly, Deignan, Phillips, Murphy, Montagu, Charette!_
_Howsoe’er we laud and laurel we shall be their debtors yet!_
_Shame upon us, shame upon us, should the nation e’er forget!_

CLINTON SCOLLARD.

52

THE CHARGE AT SANTIAGO

With shot and shell, like a loosened hell,
Smiting them left and right,
They rise or fall on the sloping wall
Of beetling bush and height!
They do not shrink at the awful brink
Of the rifle’s hurtling breath,
But onward press, as their ranks grow less,
To the open arms of death!

Through a storm of lead, o’er maimed and dead,
Onward and up they go,
Till hand to hand the unflinching band
Grapple the stubborn foe.
O’er men that reel, ’mid glint of steel,
Bellow or boom of gun,
They leap and shout over each redoubt
Till the final trench is won!

O charge sublime! Over dust and grime
Each hero hurls his name
In shot or shell, like a molten hell,
To the topmost heights of fame!
And prone or stiff, under bush and cliff,
Wounded or dead men lie,
While the tropic sun on a grand deed done
Looks with his piercing eye!

WILLIAM HAMILTON HAYNE.

(By special permission of the author.)

53

SPAIN’S LAST ARMADA

They fling their flags upon the morn,
Their safety’s held a thing for scorn,
As to the fray the Spaniards on the wings of war are borne;
Their sullen smoke-clouds writhe and reel,
And sullen are their ships of steel,
All ready, cannon, lanyards, from the fighting-tops to keel.

They cast upon the golden air
One glancing, helpless, hopeless prayer,
To ask that swift and thorough be the victory falling there;
Then giants with a cheer and sigh
Burst forth to battle and to die
Beneath the walls of Morro on that morning in July.

The _Teresa_ heads the haughty train,
To bear the Admiral of Spain,
She rushes, hurtling, whitening, like the summer hurricane;
El Morro glowers in his might;
Socapa crimsons with the fight;
The _Oquendo’s_ lunging lightning blazes through her somber night.

In desperate and eager dash
The _Vizcaya_ hurls her vivid flash,
As wild upon the waters her enormous batteries crash;
Like spindrift scuds the fleet _Colon_,
And, on her bubbling wake bestrown,
Lurch, hungry for the slaughter, _El Furor_ and _El Pluton_.

Round Santiago’s armored crest,
Serene, in their gray valor dressed,
Our behemoths lie quiet, watching well from south and west;
Their keen eyes spy the harbor-reek;
The signals dance, the signals speak;
Then breaks the blasting riot as our broadsides storm and shriek!

Quick, poising on her eagle-wings,
The _Brooklyn_ into battle swings;
The wide sea falls and wonders as the titan _Texas_ springs;
The _Iowa_ in monster-leaps
Goes bellowing above the deeps;
The _Indiana_ thunders as her terror onward sweeps.

And, hovering near and hovering low
Until the moment strikes to go,
In gallantry the _Gloucester_ swoops down on her double foe;
She volleys--the _Furor_ falls lame;
Again--and the _Pluton’s_ aflame;
Hurrah, on high she’s tossed her! Gone the grim destroyers’ fame!

And louder yet and louder roar
The _Oregon’s_ black cannon o’er
The clangor and the booming all along the Cuban shore.
She’s swifting down her valkyr-path,
Her sword sharp for the aftermath,
With levin in her glooming, like Jehovah in His wrath.

Great ensigns snap and shine in air
Above the furious onslaught where
Our sailors cheer the battle, danger but a thing to dare;
Our gunners speed, as oft they’ve sped,
Their hail of shrilling, shattering lead,
Swift-sure our rifles rattle, and the foeman’s decks are red.

Like baying bloodhounds lope our ships,
Adrip with fire their cannons’ lips;
We scourge the fleeing Spanish, whistling weals from scorpion-whips;
Till, livid in the ghastly glare,
They tremble on in dread despair,
And thoughts of victory vanish in the carnage they must bear.

Where Cuban coasts in beauty bloom,
Where Cuban breakers swirl and boom,
The _Teresa’s_ onset slackens in a scarlet spray of doom;
Near Nimanima’s greening hill
The streaming flames cry down her will,
Her vast hull blows and blackens, prey to every mortal ill.

On Juan Gonzales’ foaming strand
The _Oquendo_ plunges ’neath our hand,
Her armaments all strangled, and her hope a showering brand;
She strikes and grinds upon the reef,
And, shuddering there in utter grief,
In misery and mangled, wastes away beside her chief.

The _Vizcaya_ nevermore shall ride
From out Aserradero’s tide,
With hate upon her forehead ne’er again she’ll pass in pride;
Beneath our fearful battle-spell
She moaned and struggled, flared and fell,
To lie agleam and horrid, while the piling fires swell.

Thence from the wreck of Spain alone
Tears on the terrified _Colon_,
In bitter anguish crying, like a storm-bird forth she’s flown;
Her throbbing engines creak and thrum;
She sees abeam the _Brooklyn_ come,
For life she’s gasping, flying; for the combat is she dumb.

Till then the man behind the gun
Had wrought whatever must be done--
Here, now, beside our boilers is the fight fought out and won;
Where great machines pulse on and beat,
A-swelter in the humming heat
The Nation’s nameless toilers make her mastery complete.

The Cape o’ the Cross casts out a stone
Against the course of the _Colon_,
Despairing and inglorious on the wind her white flag’s thrown;
Spain’s last Armada, lost and wan,
Lies where Tarquino’s stream rolls on,
As round the world, victorious, looms the dreadnought _Oregon_.

The sparkling daybeams softly flow
To glint the twilight afterglow,
The banner sinks in splendor that in battle ne’er was low;
The music of our country’s hymn
Rings out like song of seraphim,
Fond memories and tender fill the evening fair and dim;

Our huge ships ride in majesty
Unchallenged o’er the glittering sea,
Above them white stars cluster, mighty emblem of the free;
And all adown the long sea-lane
The fitful bale-fires wax and wane
To shed their lurid lustre on the empire that was Spain.

WALLACE RICE.

(By special permission of the author.)

54

BALLAD OF PACO TOWN

In Paco town and in Paco tower,
At the height of the tropic noonday hour,
Some Tagal riflemen, half a score,
Watched the length of the highway o’er,
And when to the front the troopers spurred,
Whiz-z! whiz-z! how the Mausers whirred!

From the opposite walls, through crevice and crack,
Volley on volley went ringing back
Where a band of regulars tried to drive
The stinging rebels out of their hive;
“Wait till our cannon come, and then,”
Cried a captain, striding among his men,
“We’ll settle that bothersome buzz and drone
With a merry little tune of our own!”

The sweltering breezes seemed to swoon,
And down the _calle_ the thickening flames
Licked the roofs in the tropic noon.
Then through the crackle and glare and heat,
And the smoke and the answering acclaims
Of the rifles, far up the village street
Was heard the clatter of horses’ feet,
And a band of signal-men swung in sight,
Hasting back from the ebbing fight
That had swept away to the left and right.

“Ride!” yelled the regulars, all aghast,
And over the heads of the signal-men,
As they whirled in desperate gallop past,
The bullets a vicious music made,
Like the whistle and whine of the midnight blast
On the weltering wastes of the ocean when
The breast of the deep is scourged and flayed.

It chanced in the line of the fiercest fire
A rebel bullet had clipped the wire
That led, from the front and the fighting, down
To those that stayed in Manila town;
This gap arrested the watchful eye
Of one of the signal-men galloping by,
And straightway, out of the plunge and press,
He reined his horse with a swift caress
And a word in the ear of the rushing steed;
Then back with never a halt nor heed
Of the swarming bullets he rode, his goal
The parted wire and the slender pole
That stood where the deadly tower looked down
On the rack and ruin of Paco town.

Out of his saddle he sprang as gay
As a schoolboy taking a holiday;
Wire in hand up the pole he went
With never a glance at the tower, intent
Only on that which he saw appear
As the line of his duty plain and clear.
To the very crest he climbed, and there,
While the bullets buzzed in the scorching air,
Clipped his clothing, and scored and stung
The slender pole-top to which he clung,
Made the wire that was severed sound,
Slipped in his careless way to the ground,
Sprang to the back of his horse, and then
Was off, this bravest of signal-men.
Cheers for the hero! While such as he,
Heedless alike of wounds and scars,
Fight for the dear old Stripes and Stars,
Down through the years to us shall be
Ever and ever the victory!

CLINTON SCOLLARD.

IN TIME OF PEACE

55

PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES

All sobbing, shrieking, swirls the gale,
December in its sweep,
Till ocean’s hoary face is pale
With foam, abysses deep;
Then see within the furious spray
A ship against the gray!

The sirens sing by George’s shoal
And lure their victim in,
So the _Lord Gough_, through surge and roll,
The dismal drift and din,
Comes round to where the breakers comb
Into sheer, wind-swept foam.

They see, half-way the shattered mast,
The Stars and Stripes stand out;
They hear, above the howling blast,
Old Hughes, with mighty shout,
“Now, boys, three hearty English cheers!
Come forward, volunteers!”

They man their boat, these gallant tars,
Though skies beat down the sea--
When falls the flag with all its stars,
Then to the masthead free
Runs up, the blue above, to swear,
“For us Fate still is fair!”

In frosty blasts that seek to blow
Their valor from the helm,
They row as they would have you row
When billows overwhelm:
The baffled storm its witness bears--
The _Cleopatra’s_ theirs!

He thaws the winter from his bone,
He mourns the ship so gone,
And Pendleton tells great gales blown,
Despair since drifting dawn;
Water-logged, with his boats stove in,
What hope was his to win?

He saw the sailors on the _Gough_--
Death stood before his eyes,
He knew they would be putting off
Where seas beat back the skies;
His flag free on the tempest flew
Lest they should perish too....

While Englishmen in mercy go
Cheering, to war with Death,
While the Americans can throw
Off hope, for others’ breath,
A tyrant Fate need slink afraid,
From clear eyes, undismayed.

And oh, ye folk of English speech,
When such a brood ye’ve borne,
What favor need ye e’er beseech
From Fate so ripe for scorn?
’Tis yours, ye freemen, by your birth,
All that ye will on earth!

WALLACE RICE.

(By special permission of the author.)

56

IN THE TUNNEL

Didn’t know Flynn,--
Flynn of Virginia,--
Long as he’s been ’yar?
Look’ee here, stranger,
Whar _hev_ you been?

Here in this tunnel
He was my pardner,
That same Tom Flynn,--
Working together,
In wind and weather,
Day out and in.

Didn’t know Flynn!
Well, that _is_ queer;
Why, it’s a sin
To think of Tom Flynn,--
Tom with his cheer,
Tom without fear,--
Stranger, look ’yar!

Thar in the drift,
Back to the wall,
He held the timbers
Ready to fall;
Then in the darkness
I heard him call:
“Run for your life, Jake!
Run for your wife’s sake!
Don’t wait for me.”
And that was all
Heard in the din,
Heard of Tom Flynn,--
Flynn of Virginia.

That’s all about
Flynn of Virginia.
That lets me out.
Here in the damp,--
Out of the sun,--
That ’ar derned lamp
Makes my eyes run.
Well, there,--I’m done!

But, sir, when you’ll
Hear the next fool
Asking of Flynn,--
Flynn of Virginia,--
Just you chip in,
Say you knew Flynn;
Say that you’ve been ’yar.

BRET HARTE.

(By special permission of Houghton, Mifflin and Company.)

57

THE BALLAD OF CALNAN’S CHRISTMAS

When you hear the fire-gongs beat fierce along the startled street,
See the great-limbed horses bound, and the gleaming engine sway,
And the driver in his place, with his fixed, heroic face,
Say a prayer for Calnan’s sake--he that died on Christmas day!

Cling! Cling! Each to his station!
Clang! Clang! Quick to clear the way!
(Christ keep the soldiers of salvation,
Fighting nameless battles in the war of every day!)

In the morning, blue and mild, of the Mother and the Child,
While the blessed bells were calling, thrilled the summons through the wire;
In the morning, blue and mild, for a woman and a child
Died a man of gentle will, plunging on to fight the fire.

Ring, swing, bells in the steeple!
Ring the Child and ring the Star, as sweetly as ye may!
Ring, swing, bells, to tell the people
God’s good will to earthly men, the men of every day!

“Thirty-four” swung out agleam, with her mighty, bounding team;
Horses’ honor pricked them on, and they leaped as at a goad;
Jimmy Calnan in his place, with his clean-cut Irish face,
Iron hands upon the reins, eyes a-strain upon the road.

Clang! Clang! Quick to clear the way!
(Sweetly rang, above the clang, the bells of Christmas day.)

Tearing, plunging through the din, scarce a man could hold them in;
None on earth could pull them short: Mary Mother, guide from harm
Yonder woman straight ahead, stony still with sudden dread,
And the little woman-child, with her waxen child in arm!

Oh, God’s calls, how swift they are! Oh, the Cross that hides the Star!
Oh, the fire-gong beating fierce through the bells of Christmas day!
Just a second there to choose, and a life to keep or lose--
To the curb he swung the horses, and he flung his life away!

Ring, swing, bells in the steeple!
Ring the Star and ring the Cross, for Star and Cross are one!
Ring, swing, bells, to tell the people
God is pleased with manly men, and the deeds that they have done!

HELEN GRAY CONE.

(By special permission of the author, and of The Century Company.)

58

HOW HE SAVED ST. MICHAEL’S

It was long ago it happened, ere ever the signal gun
That blazed above Fort Sumter had wakened the North as one;
Long ere the wondrous pillar of battle-cloud and fire
Had marked where the unchained millions marched on to their hearts’ desire.

On the roofs and the glittering turrets, that night, as the sun went down,
The mellow glow of the twilight shone like a jewelled crown,
And, bathed in the living glory, as the people lifted their eyes,
They saw the pride of the city, the spire of St. Michael’s, rise

High over the lesser steeples, tipped with a golden ball,
That hung like a radiant planet caught in its earthward fall;
First glimpse of home to the sailor who made the harbor round,
The last slow-fading vision dear to the outward bound.

The gently gathering shadows shut out the waning light;
The children prayed at their bedsides, as you will pray to-night;
The noise of buyer and seller from the busy mart was gone,
And in dreams of a peaceful morrow the city slumbered on.

But another light than sunrise aroused the sleeping street,
For a cry was heard at midnight, and the rush of trampling feet;
Men stared in each other’s faces through mingled fire and smoke,
While the frantic bells went clashing clamorous stroke on stroke!

By the glare of her blazing roof-tree the houseless mother fled,
With the babe she pressed to her bosom shrieking in nameless dread,
While the fire-king’s wild battalions scaled wall and capstone high,
And planted their flaring banners against an inky sky.

From the death that raged behind them and the crash of ruin loud,
To the great square of the city, were driven the surging crowd,
Where yet firm in all the tumult, unscathed by the fiery flood,
With its heavenward-pointing finger the church of St. Michael stood.

But e’en as they gazed upon it there rose a sudden wail,
A cry of horror blended with the roaring of the gale,
On whose scorching wings updriven a single flaming brand
Aloft on the towering steeple clung like a bloody hand.

“Will it fade?” The whisper trembled from a thousand whitening lips;
Far out on the lurid harbor they watched it from the ships--
A baleful gleam that brighter and ever brighter shone,
Like a flickering, trembling will-o’-the-wisp to a steady beacon grown.

“Uncounted gold shall be given to the man whose brave right hand,
For the love of the periled city, plucks down yon burning brand!”
So cried the Mayor of Charleston, that all the people heard,
But they looked each one at his fellow, and no man spoke a word.

Who is it leans from the belfry, with face upturned to the sky?
Clings to a column and measures the dizzy spire with his eye?
Will he dare it, the hero undaunted, that terrible, sickening height?
Or will the hot blood of his courage freeze in his veins at the sight?

But see! he has stepped on the railing, he climbs with his feet and his hands,
And firm on a narrow projection with the belfry beneath him he stands!
Now once, and once only, they cheer him--a single, tempestuous breath--
And there falls on the multitude gazing a hush like the stillness of death.

Slow, steadily mounting, unheeding aught save the goal of the fire,
Still higher and higher, an atom, he moves on the face of the spire;
He stops! Will he fall? Lo, for answer, a gleam like a meteor’s track!
And, hurled on the stones of the pavement, the red brand lies shattered and black!

Once more the shouts of the people have rent the quivering air,
At the church-door Mayor and Council wait with their feet on the stair,
And the eager throng behind them press for a touch of his hand--
The unknown savior whose daring could compass a deed so grand.

But why does a sudden tremor seize on them while they gaze?
And what means the stifled murmur of wonder and amaze?
He stood in the gate of the temple he had periled his life to save,
And the face of the hero undaunted was the sable face of a slave!

With folded arms he was speaking, in tones that were clear, not loud,
And his eyes, ablaze in their sockets, burnt into the eyes of the crowd:
“You may keep your gold,--I scorn it!--but answer me, ye who can,
If the deed I have done before you be not the deed of a _man_?”

He stepped but a short space backward, and from all the women and men
There were only sobs for answer, and the Mayor called for a pen
And the great seal of the city, that he might read who ran;
And the slave who saved St. Michael’s went out from the door, a man.

MARY ANNA PHINNEY STANSBURY.

(By special permission of the author.)

59

THE RIDE OF COLLIN GRAVES

No song of a soldier riding down
To the raging fight of Winchester town;
No song of a time that shook the earth
With the nation’s throe at a nation’s birth;
But the song of a brave man free from fear
As Sheridan’s self or Paul Revere;
Who risked what they risked,--free from strife
And its promise of glorious pay,--his life.

The peaceful valley has waked and stirred,
And the answering echoes of life are heard;
The dew still clings to the trees and grass,
And the early toilers smiling pass,
As they glance aside at the white-walled homes,
Or up the valley where merrily comes
The brook that sparkles in diamond rills
As the sun comes over the Hampshire hills.

What was it passed like an ominous breath?
Like a shiver of fear, or a touch of death?
What was it? The valley is peaceful still,
And the leaves are afire on the top of the hill;
It was not a sound, nor a thing of sense,--
But a pain, like a pang in the short suspense
That wraps the being of those who see
At their feet the gulf of eternity.

The air of the valley has felt the chill;
The workers pause at the door of the mill;
The housewife, keen to the shivering air,
Arrests her foot on the cottage stair,
Instinctive taught by the mother-love,
And thinks of the sleeping ones above.

Why start the listeners? Why does the course
Of the mill-stream widen? Is it a horse--
“Hark to the sound of the hoofs!” they say--
That gallops so wildly Williamsburg way?
God! what was that like a human shriek
From the winding valley? Will nobody speak?
Will nobody answer those women who cry
As the awful warnings thunder by?

Whence come they? Listen! and now they hear
The sound of the galloping horse-hoofs near;
They watch the trend of the vale, and see
The rider who thunders so menacingly,
With waving arms and warning scream
To the home-filled banks of the valley stream.
He draws no rein, but he shakes the street
With a shout and the ring of the galloping feet,
And this the cry that he flings to the wind,--
“_To the hills for your lives! The flood is behind!_”

He cries and is gone, but they know the worst,--
The treacherous Williamsburg dam has burst!
The basin that nourished their happy homes
Is changed to a demon. It comes! it comes!
A monster in aspect, with shaggy front
Of shattered dwellings to take the brunt
Of the dwellings they shatter;--white-maned and hoarse
The merciless terror fills the course
Of the narrow valley, and rushing raves
With death on the first of its hissing waves,
Till cottage and street and crowded mill
Are crumbled and crushed. But onward still,
In front of the roaring flood, is heard
The galloping horse and the warning word.

Thank God that the brave man’s life is spared!
From Williamsburg town he nobly dared
To race with the flood, and to take the road
In front of the terrible swath it mowed.
For miles it thundered and crashed behind,
But he looked ahead with a steadfast mind:
“_They must be warned!_” was all he said,
As away on his terrible ride he sped.

When heroes are called for, bring the crown
To this Yankee rider; send him down
On the stream of time with the Curtius old;
His deed, as the Roman’s, was brave and bold;
And the tale can as noble a thrill awake,
For he offered his life for the people’s sake!

JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY.

(By special permission of Miss Mary Boyle O’Reilly.)

60

JIM BLUDSO

Wall, no! I can’t tell whar he lives,
Becase he don’t live, you see;
Leastways, he’s got out of the habit
Of livin’ like you and me.
Whar have you been for the last three year
That you haven’t heard folks tell
How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks
The night of the _Prairie Belle_?

He wer’n’t no saint,--them engineers
Is all pretty much alike,--
One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill
And another one here, in Pike;
A keerless man in his talk was Jim,
And an awkward hand in a row,
But he never flunked, and he never lied,--
I reckon he never knowed how.

And this was all the religion he had,--
To treat his engine well;
Never be passed on the river;
To mind the pilot’s bell;
And if ever the _Prairie Belle_ took fire,--
A thousand times he swore,
He’d hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last soul got ashore.

All boats has their day on the Mississip,
And her day come at last,--
The _Movastar_ was a better boat,
But the _Belle_ she _wouldn’t_ be passed.
And so she come tearin’ along that night--
The oldest craft on the line--
With a nigger squat on her safety-valve,
And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.

The fire bust out as she dared the bar,
And burnt a hole in the night,
And quick as a flash she turned, and made
For that willer-bank on the right.
There was runnin’ and cursin’, but Jim yelled out,
Over all the infernal roar,
“I’ll hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last galoot’s ashore.”

Through the hot, black breath of the burnin’ boat
Jim Bludso’s voice was heard,
And they all had trust in his cussedness,
And knowed he would keep his word.
And sure’s you’re born, they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell,--
And Bludso’s ghost went up alone
In the smoke of the _Prairie Belle_.

He wer’n’t no saint,--but at jedgment
I’d run my chance with Jim,
’Longside of some pious gentlemen
That wouldn’t shook hands with him.
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing,--
And went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain’t a-going to be too hard
On a man that died for men.

JOHN HAY.

(By special permission of the author, and of Houghton, Mifflin and
Company.)

61

GEORGE NIDIVER

Men have done brave deeds,
And bards have sung them well;
I of good George Nidiver
Now the tale will tell.

In Californian mountains
A hunter bold was he;
Keen his eye and sure his aim
As any you should see.

A little Indian boy
Followed him everywhere,
Eager to share the hunter’s joy,
The hunter’s meal to share.

And when the bird or deer
Fell by the hunter’s skill,
The boy was always near
To help with right good will.

One day as through the cleft
Between two mountains steep,
Shut in both right and left,
Their questing way they keep,

They see two grizzly bears,
With hunger fierce and fell,
Rush at them unawares
Right down the narrow dell.

The boy turned round with screams,
And ran with terror wild;
One of the pair of savage beasts
Pursued the shrieking child.

The hunter raised his gun,
He knew one charge was all,
And through the boy’s pursuing foe
He sent his only ball.

The other on George Nidiver
Came on with dreadful pace;
The hunter stood unarmed,
And met him face to face.

I say _unarmed_ he stood;
Against those frightful paws,
The rifle butt, or club of wood,
Could stand no more than straws.

George Nidiver stood still,
And looked him in the face;
The wild beast stopped amazed,
Then came with slackened pace.

Still firm the hunter stood,
Although his heart beat high;
Again the creature stopped,
And gazed with wondering eye.

The hunter met his gaze,
Nor yet an inch gave way;
The bear turned slowly round,
And slowly moved away.

What thoughts were in his mind
It would be hard to spell;
What thoughts were in George Nidiver’s
I rather guess than tell.

But sure that rifle’s aim,
Swift choice of generous part,
Showed in its passing gleam
The depths of a brave heart.

ANONYMOUS.

62

A MAN’S NAME

Through the packed horror of the night
It rose up like a star,
And sailed into the infinite,
Where the immortals are.

“Down brakes!” One splendid hard-held breath,
And lo, an unknown name
Strode into sovereignty from death
Trailing a path of flame!

“Jump!”--“I remain.”--No needless word,
No vagueness in his breast;
Along his blood the swift test stirred--
He answered to the test,

Gripped his black peril like a vise,
And, as be grappled, saw
That life is one with sacrifice,
And duty one with law.

Home:--but his feet grew granite fast;
Wife:--yet he did not reel;
Babes:--ah, they tugged! but to the last
He stood as true as steel.

Above his own heart’s lovingness,
Above another’s crime,
Above the immitigable stress,
Above himself and time,

Smote loving Comfort on the cheek,
Gave quibbling Fear the lie,
Taught ambling Fluence how to speak,
And brave men how to die.

Who said the time of kings was gone?
Who said our Alps were low,
And not by God’s airs blown upon?
Behold, it is not so!

Out from the palace and the hut,
Dwarf-fronted, lame of will,
Limp our marred Joves and giants--but
Sceptered for mastery still,

And clothed with puissance to quell
Whatever mobs of shame
Are leagued within us, with such spell
As David Simmons’ name.

RICHARD REALF.

(From _Poems_, by Richard Realf. Copyright, Funk and Wagnalls
Company, 1898. By special permission.)

63

THE MAN WHO RODE TO CONEMAUGH

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!
’T ain’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;
’T ain’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.

(By special permission of Edward A. Bowen, Esq., and of Harper and
Brothers.)

64

JOHNNY BARTHOLOMEW

The journals this morning are full of a tale
Of a terrible ride through a tunnel by rail;
And people are called on to note and admire
How a hundred or more, through the smoke-cloud and fire,
Were borne from all peril to limbs and to lives--
Mothers saved to their children, and husbands to wives.
But of him who performed such a notable deed
Quite little the journalists give us to read.
In truth, of this hero so plucky and bold
There is nothing except, in few syllables told,
His name, which is Johnny Bartholomew.

Away in Nevada--they don’t tell us where,
Nor does it much matter--a railway is there
Which winds in and out through the cloven ravines,
With glimpses at times of the wildest of scenes:
Now passing a bridge seeming fine as a thread,
Now shooting past cliffs that impend o’er the head,
Now plunging some black-throated tunnel within,
Whose darkness is roused at the clatter and din;
And ran every day with its train o’er the road
An engine that steadily dragged on its load,
And was driven by Johnny Bartholomew.

With throttle-valve down, he was slowing the train,
While the sparks fell around and behind him like rain.
As he came to a spot where a curve to the right
Brought the black, yawning mouth of a tunnel in sight,
And, peering ahead with a far-seeing ken,
Felt a quick sense of danger come over him then.
Was a train on the track? No! A peril as dire--
The farther extreme of the tunnel on fire!
And the volume of smoke, as it gathered and rolled,
Shook fearful dismay from each dun-colored fold,
But daunted not Johnny Bartholomew.

Beat faster his heart, though its current stood still,
And his nerves felt a jar, but no tremulous thrill;
And his eyes keenly gleamed through their partly closed lashes,
And his lips--not with fear--took the color of ashes.
“If we falter, these people behind us are dead!
So close the doors, fireman; we’ll send her ahead!
Crowd on the steam till she rattles and swings!
Open the throttle-valve! give her her wings!”
Shouted he from his post in the engineer’s room,
Driving onward perchance to a terrible doom,
This man they call Johnny Bartholomew.

Firm grasping the bell-rope and holding his breath,
On, on through the Vale of the Shadow of Death;
On, on through the horrible cavern of hell,
Through flames that arose and through timbers that fell,
Through the eddying smoke and the serpents of fire
That writhed and that hissed in their anguish and ire.
With a rush and a roar like the wild tempest’s blast,
To the free air beyond them in safety they passed;
While the clang of the bell and the steam-pipe’s shrill yell
Told the joy of escape from that underground hell
Of the man they called Johnny Bartholomew.

Did the passengers get up a service of plate?
Did some oily-tongued orator at the man prate?
Women kiss him? Young children cling fast to his knees?
Stout men in their rapture his brown fingers squeeze?
And where was he born? Is he handsome? Has he
A wife for his bosom, a child for his knee?
Is he young? Is he old? Is he tall? Is he short?
Well, ladies, the journals tell naught of the sort.
And all that they give us about him to-day,
After telling the tale in a commonplace way,
Is--the man’s name is Johnny Bartholomew.

THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH.

(By special permission of the author, and of Harper and Brothers.)

65

HIS NAME

O, the billows of fire!
With maelstrom-like swirl,
Their surges they hurl
Over roof, over spire,
Mad, masterless, higher,
Till rumble--crack--crash--
Down boom with a flash,
Whole columns of granite and marble: see! see!
Sucked in as a weed on the ocean might be,
Or engulfed as a sail
In the hurricane-riot and wreak of the gale!

Ha! yonder they rush where the death-dealing steam,
Over-pent, waits their gleam
To shudder the city with earthquake! Who, _who_
Will adventure mid-flame, and unfasten the screw,
Set the fiend loose, and save us so? Firemen, you--
_You_ willing? Would God you might hazard it! Nay,
The red tongues are licking the faucets now! Stay!
Too late!--’tis too late!
If ruin, explosion, must come, let us wait
Its coming: to go is to perish.--Hold! hold!
You are young--I am old--
You’ve a wife too--and children?... O God, he is gone
Straight into destruction! The pipes, men! On--on!
Play the water-stream on him--full--faster--the whole!
And now ... Christ save his soul!

I stifle--I choke--
And _he_--Heaven grant that he smother in smoke
Ere the dread detonation! Hark!--hark! What’s the shout?
_Is he saved? Is he out?_
Did he compass his purpose?... The hero! _One_ name
This pencil of fire on the records of Fame
Shall blazon, if justice is meted. Why here
On my cheek is a tear,
Which not a whole city in ashes could claim!
His name, now,--_can nobody tell me his name_?
--MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON.

(By special permission of Dr. George J. Preston.)

66

OLD BRADDOCK

Fire! fire in Allentown!
The Women’s Building--it must go.
Mothers wild rush up and down,
Despairing men push to and fro;
Two stories caught--one story more--
See--see--old Braddock’s to the fore,
Braddock, full three-score.

Like a high granite rock
His good gray head looms huge and bare;
Firm as rock in tempest shock
He towers above the tallest there.
“Conrad!” ’Tis Braddock to his son,
The prop he thinks to lean upon
When his work is done.

Conrad, the young and brave,
Unflinching meets his father’s eye:
“Who would now the children save,
That they die not himself must die.”
The boy, in that white face no fear--
But, oh, it is so sweet, so dear--
Life at twenty year!

“Father--Father!” A quick
Embrace, and he has set his feet
On the ladder. Rolling thick,
The flame-shot smoke chokes all the street,
So blinds one only has descried
Her form, that, through its dreadful tide,
Springs to Conrad’s side.

Strong she is, now, as he,
Throbbing with love’s own lion might;
Strong as beautiful is she,
And Conrad’s arms are pinioned tight.
“Far through the fire, sits God above--”
In vain he pleads; full does it prove,
Her full strength of love.

Too late she sets him free--
High overhead his father’s call:
From a height no eye can see
Calls hoary Braddock down the wall,--
“Old men are Death’s, let him destroy.
Young men are Life’s, Conrad, my boy--
Life’s and Love’s, my boy!”

Wilder the women’s cries,
Hoarser the shouts of men below;
Sheets of fire against the skies,
Set all the stricken town aglow.
With sweep and shriek, with rush and roar,
The flames shut round old Braddock hoar--
Braddock, full three-score.

“Save, save my children, save!”
“Aye, aye!” all answer, speak as one,
“If man’s arm can from the grave
Bring back your babes, it will be done;
Know Braddock still is worth us all--
Hark--hark! It is his own brave call,--
‘Back--back from the wall!’”

God, God, that it should be!
As savagely the lashed wind veers,
Fiercer than the fiery sea
The frantic crowd waves hands, and cheers;
An old man high in whirl of hell!
The children--how, no soul can tell--
Braddock holds them well.

Shorn all that good gray head
With snows of sixty winters sown;
Griped around the children’s bed,
One arm is shriveled to the bone:
“Old men are Death’s, let him destroy,
Young men are Life’s, Conrad, my boy,
Life’s and Love’s, my boy!”...

Fire! fire in Allentown!
Though ’twas a hundred years ago,
How the babes were carried down,
To-day the village children know.
They know of Braddock’s good gray head,
They know the last, great words he said,
Know how he fell--dead.

JOHN VANCE CHENEY.

(By special permission of the author.)

67

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.

(By special permission of the author, and of _The Youth’s
Companion_.)

NOTES

[For information incorporated in the notes the Editor is indebted to many of the authors represented in the volume. He has also, in several instances, received valuable suggestions from Mr. Francis F. Browne’s “Bugle Echoes.” The notes are intended to be suggestive rather than in any sense exhaustive.]

In Time of Strife

1. PAUL REVERE’S RIDE. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the most widely read and most beloved
American poet, was born in Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807, and
died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he had long resided, March
24, 1882.

Paul Revere, who was a self-taught engraver upon copperplate, and who at the time of the Revolution was one of the four engravers in America, rendered his first important service as a messenger in connection with the throwing overboard of the tea in Boston harbor. Before he took his most famous ride he had traveled several thousand miles in the interest of the “patriot” cause, and after

“the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five,”

continued to act as a bearer of dispatches. He was one of the committee of upwards of thirty formed in Boston to watch the movements of the British soldiers. On the memorable evening of April 18th, troops were observed marching toward the bottom of the Common. About ten o’clock Revere was apprised of this fact, whereupon he at once repaired to the house of Dr. Joseph Warren (afterward General Warren), one of the committee. There he discovered that an “express,” one William Dawes, had already been sent by land to Lexington. Hurriedly seeking his friend, Robert Newman, the sexton of the “Old North Church” (Christ Church, Salem Street), and arranging for the display of the signal previously agreed upon, Revere set out. He succeeded in reaching Lexington before Dawes, who joined him about half an hour after his arrival. The two, together with Dr. Prescott, “a high Son of Liberty,” started in company for Concord, but were intercepted at Lincoln by a party of British. Revere and Dawes were captured, but Prescott managed to escape by jumping his horse over a stone wall. It was he who rode on to Concord, alarming the countryside as he went.

Of Dawes’s part in the enterprise of the night, Helen F. More wrote thus humorously in the _Century Magazine_ for February, 1896:

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

I am a wandering, bitter shade;
Never of me was a hero made;
Poets have never sung my praise,
Nobody crowned my brows with bays;
And if you ask me the fatal cause,
I answer only, “My name was Dawes.”

’Tis all very well for children to hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere;
But why should my name be quite forgot,
Who rode so boldly and well, God wot?
Why should I ask? The reason is clear--
My name is Dawes and his Revere.

When the lights from the Old North Church flashed out,
Paul Revere was waiting about,
But I was already on my way.
The shadows of night fell cold and gray
As I rode, with never a break or pause;
But what was the use, when my name was Dawes?

History rings with his silvery name;
Closed to me are the portals of fame.
Had he been Dawes and I Revere,
No one had heard of him, I fear.
No one has heard of me because
He was Revere and I was Dawes.

Paul Revere was born within sight of the “Old North Church,” and almost under its shadow he lived and died (1735-1818). It is fitting, then, that to-day the passer should see, imbedded in the solid masonry of the tower, a tablet bearing this inscription:

THE SIGNAL LANTERNS OF
PAUL REVERE
DISPLAYED IN THE STEEPLE OF THIS CHURCH
APRIL 18, 1775,
WARNED THE COUNTRY OF THE MARCH
OF THE BRITISH TROOPS TO
LEXINGTON AND CONCORD.

2. MARY BUTLER’S RIDE. By Benjamin Franklin Taylor.

Benjamin Franklin Taylor was born in Lowville, New York, July 19,
1819. He was best known as a lecturer. He died in Cleveland, Ohio,
February 24, 1887.

Of the poem the author says: “The story of ‘Mary Butler’s Ride’ is unembellished truth. To one of her grandsons, J. M. Taylor, Esq., of New York, I am indebted for the incident. To hear men say,--those far-away boys of hers, and yet busy in life’s affairs,--‘many a time I have heard her tell the story!’ brings the gray-eyed Mary Butler strangely near. It is like raising a dead century to instant resurrection.”

=1. 39.= =Stark= (John, 1728-1822), a Continental brigadier-general who distinguished himself at Bunker Hill and Bennington.

=1. 84.= =Putnam= (Israel, 1718-1790), a Continental major-general, active at Bunker Hill and in various other engagements until stricken by paralysis in 1779. His daring escape from the British soldiers by riding down a flight of stone steps in the town of Greenwich, Connecticut, occurred in March, 1779.

3. THE SURPRISE AT TICONDEROGA. By Mary Anna Phinney Stansbury.

Mary Anna Phinney Stansbury, a magazine writer who resides in
Appleton, Wisconsin, was born in Vernon, New York, October 5, 1842.

Ethan Allen, the hero of Ticonderoga, though born in Litchfield, Connecticut (January 10, 1737), early removed to Vermont. He participated in the invasion of Canada under General Schuyler, and was there captured and sent a prisoner to England, where he suffered many privations. It was largely through his instrumentality that Vermont was recognized as an independent State. He died in Burlington, February 13, 1789.

The fortress of Ticonderoga (a corruption of the Iroquois “Cheonderoga,” meaning “rushing waters”) was erected by the French, in 1755, on the western shore of Lake Champlain, near the outlet of Lake George. It was originally called Fort Carillon (chime of bells) from the neighboring waterfall (see stanza 6). It was here that the French under Montcalm (stanza 13) repulsed the English under Abercrombie, on the 8th of July, 1758.

Allen’s bold capture was effected on the morning of May 10, 1775.

At the time of the taking of Ticonderoga by Allen, the garrison consisted of but forty-eight men under the command of Captain Delaplace. The Continental Congress, which Allen invoked at the time of the surrender, had not yet organized. It held its first session six hours later on that very day.

=Stanza 11.= =King David.= See 2 Samuel v., 23, 24.

The Vermont “Green Mountain Boys,” mentioned so prominently in a number of engagements in the Revolution, were first organized in 1772 to resist the civil power of New York.

In connection with Mrs. Stansbury’s poem it may be interesting to read Robert Louis Stevenson’s ballad, “Ticonderoga.”

4. MONTGOMERY AT QUEBEC. By Clinton Scollard.

Clinton Scollard, born in Clinton, New York, September 18, 1860.

Richard Montgomery was a native of the North of Ireland. He entered the British army at the age of twenty, and served with distinction under Wolfe, and later in the campaign against the Spanish West Indies. Marrying a daughter of Robert R. Livingston, and settling upon the Hudson, at Rhinebeck, he espoused the cause of the colonists at the opening of the war. In the expedition against Canada he was second in command under Schuyler, with the rank of brigadier-general. The attack upon Quebec was made early in the morning of the 31st of December, 1775. Montgomery’s death was regarded as a great public calamity. Congress passed resolutions of regret and condolence, and Chatham and Burke eulogized the dead leader on the floor of the British Parliament. At the time of his death he was thirty-eight years of age.

=Stanza 6.= =Wolfe= (James), the “hero of Louisburg” and the conqueror of Quebec, fell upon the Plains of Abraham in his thirty-second year. He is to this day regarded as one of the half dozen most noted generals that England has produced. Quebec was taken on the 13th of September, 1759.

5. THE MARYLAND BATTALION. By John Williamson Palmer.

John Williamson Palmer, a Baltimore physician, the author of the
famous lyric, “Stonewall Jackson’s Way,” and Bret Harte’s
forerunner in “breaking the virgin soil of California in the field
of American letters,” was born in the city of Baltimore, April 4,
1825.

This ballad celebrates the heroism of the “Maryland Battalion” at the battle of Long Island, August 27, 1776, where they checked the advance of Cornwallis, and saved a portion of Stirling’s command from capture. Two hundred and fifty-nine were left dead on the field.

=Stanza 2.= It was in the Flatbush district, on the American left, that General Sullivan was driven back by the Hessians and flanked by Clinton’s light infantry and dragoons.

Martense’s lane was a “pass,” or road, on the southern border of Greenwood Cemetery. Freeke’s Mill (stanza 4) stood upon Freeke’s mill-pond at the head of Gowanus Creek.

=Stanza 4.= =Grant=, the British general who commanded the left wing in the battle of Long Island. It was he who declared in the House of Commons that the Americans could not fight, and said he would undertake to march from one end of the continent to the other with five thousand men.

=Stanza 5.= =Stirling= (William Alexander), commonly called Lord Stirling, was the eldest son of James Alexander Stirling, heir presumptive to the earldom of Stirling, who fled to America in 1716 after having been actively involved in the Jacobite conspiracy of the previous year. Lord Stirling was born in New York City in 1726. He was aide-de-camp and secretary to General Shirley in the French and Indian War, and received a commission as brigadier-general in the Continental army in 1776. After the battle of Long Island, Congress made him a major-general. He died at Albany in January, 1783.

Mordecai Gist was a major in the “Maryland Battalion” who subsequently rose to the rank of brigadier-general. He was a native of Baltimore.

6. ARNOLD AT STILLWATER. By Thomas Dunn English.

Thomas Dunn English, a physician of Newark, New Jersey, was born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 29, 1819. Since early life Dr.
English has been a contributor to the periodicals of the day. His
popular ballad, “Ben Bolt,” appeared in 1842.