Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SALUTE OF THE 'IMMORTALITE', by AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SALUTE OF THE 'IMMORTALITE', by                    
First Line: The coming dawn flung out her pennants grey
Last Line: Till anglo-saxon peace shall lead the world.
Subject(s): Battleships; Manila, Philippines; Navy - Great Britain; Soldiers; Spanish-american War (1898); English Navy


(Manila Bay, August 12, 1898.)

The coming dawn flung out her pennants grey
Above Manila, where, like baffled tigers hid,
Lay crouched the war ships of the children of the Cid,
While Dewey's fleet held Europe's wolves at bay.

The morning, with her sudden orient hand,
A shower of sunbursts cast where brooding seas
Crooned softly to the shore.
The waiting land
Looked up in dread if yet the breeze
Were laden with the war-blasts roar;
Looked toward our fleet of spars
With stripes of fire sun-trimmed and burning stars.
The arméd silence of our flag defiance hurled,
Where from the Olympia's peak its bannered fold,
Unbound upon aerial waves of gold,
Flung out its daring message to the world,—
Our final word, the lifted rod of power.
O Spain! hast thou the prescience of thy fateful hour?

These tides upbore the English prows of steel;
Far off the scowling Kaiser turned his keel;
Mikado's sun flushed red before the Russian's frown,
While they whose sires had scoffed at Louis' ancient dower
In haste before the Czar bent down.

Still hunt of kings upon Manila's bay!
A muffled danger breathed upon the main.
Ready to spring our ocean bloodhounds lay.
The Lion! Did he proclaim a strange or friendly land
When toward Cavite swept his proud command?
The Nations' sentries jostled in the strain.
Aghast the Eagle and the Bear that day!

From out the British prows in open view
The Immortalité came forth alone—
The Lion's flag-ship by its legends known,
Two crosses blazed upon a field of blue;
With storied symbol of its power unfurled,
Our ships it faced in presence of a world.
O crucial hour! Was the Olympia now to meet
The standard of a hostile or a friendly fleet?

Britannia's ship with signal flags bedight,
Passed down our opened lines.
At full salute, she toward our flag-ship swung
Before the array of royal battle signs.
Agape and hushed, the nations at the sight!
Then from the English deck out-rung
Our country's anthem, which the winds bore wide
To jealous kings across the listening tide.
Ye lands, upon the eve of battle stayed,
Under all Europe's hungry guns
It was our own Star Spangled Banner flung
A-breeze by Briton's sons,
Beneath Saints George and Andrew's shade:
Her child-republic's place acknowledged to the world
On this portentous day by Albion's flag unfurled.

Outbursting from those flag-ships twain, a cry
Woke all the dreaming hazes in reply.
With brow uncovered our Commander stood
Beneath Old Glory's loosened fold,
Amidst his staff of loyal brotherhood.

Then from the Olympia burst that pæan loved of old,
"God Save the Queen." No men that bide
Upon the seas have ever poured a nation's pride
Through brazen horns so triumph filled
As those glad trumpets which that day out cast
A mother's hymn beneath a daughter's mast.
The watching squadrons with forebodings thrilled.

Across the waves the stormy Prussian frowned;
Looked forth the crouching Bear,
Scowling at him whose flowery islands rise
Where Fujiyama's snows are ever fair.
And they of France, in dumb surprise
They looked for him, the man they found
When Dewey's flag above Manila's gate
Untangled yet another knot of fate.

O England! 'tis for deeds like this, to thee
Our hearts are turned. Across the wrathful years
Thy offered hand: the rancor and the tears
Forgotten in the blessing which shall be
When side by side those brother flags are furled,
Till Anglo-Saxon peace shall lead the world.





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