Show AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE I March 15 1SS9 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 I 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 be-side Our threeand from the Trenton where she lay Through the sunset calms and after We could hear the shrill sweet laughter Of the childrens voices on the shore at play We all knew a storm was corning but dear God no man could dream Of the furious hellhorrors of that day Through the roar of wind 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 help-lessly With our rudder gone our engine fires drowned And none might hope another hourr to see For all the air was desperate with the sound Of the brave ship rent asunder Of the shrieking souls sucked underNeath under-Neath the waves where many a good mans grave was found About noon upon our quarter from the deeper gloom afar Came the English manofwar Calliope Ve have lost our anchors comrades and though small the chances are We must steer for safety and tho 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 mad-dened breakers comb Through the wild seas hill and hollow On the path we cannot fallow To your women and your children and your homes Oh remember it good brothers We two peoples speak one tongue And your native land was mother to our land But the head perhaps is hasty when the nations heart is young And we prate of things we do not understand un-derstand 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 in N Y Tribune |