Ballads of valor and victory being stories in song from the annals of America / by Clinton Scollard and Wallace Rice [electronic text]

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 the passing of a 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-tuned 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, Dating 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 fight 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!