FROM keel to fighting top, I love Our Asiatic fleet, I love our officers and crews Who'd rather fight than eat. I love the breakfast ordered up When enemies ran short, But most I love our chaplain With his head out of the port. Now, a naval chaplain cannot charge As chaplains can on land, With his Bible in his pocket, His revolver in his hand, He must wait and help the wounded, No danger must he court; So our chaplain helped the wounded With his head out of the port. Beneath his red and yellow, At bay the Spaniard stood Till the yellow rose in fire And the crimson sank in blood. And till the last fouled rifle Sped its impotent retort, Our chaplain watched the Spaniard With his head out of the port. Then here's our admiral on the bridge Above the bursting shell; And here's our sailors who went in For victory or hell, And here's the ships and here's the guns. That silenced fleet and fort; But don't forget our chaplain With his head out of the port. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK by HERMAN MELVILLE THE MAN IN THE MOON by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY FOR A DEAD LADY by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE MORAL FABLES: THE WOLF AND THE WETHER by AESOP ON MRS PRIESTLEY'S LEAVING WARRINGTON by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD |