THE SPANISH MAIN

Between the tangle of the palms,

There gleaming, like a star-strewn plain,

All smiling, lies the sea of calms,

And calls to us to fare amain;

And calls us, as with smile and gem,

She called that bold, upstanding brood,

Whose bones, when she had done with them,

Upon her shores she strewed.

Between the tangle of the palms,

By day the gleam is on the swell,

And drifting zephyrs, bearing balms,

Her tales of joy and riches tell,

And when the winds of night are free

Long, glimmering ripples wander by

As if the stars where in the sea,

Instead of in the sky.

And they went forth in ships of war

Girt up in all foolhardiness,

To take their toll from out her store,

Beguiled and snared by her caress;

And we go forth in cargo ships

To wrest her treasures bloodlessly,

And buy the nectar from her lips,

Our fairy goddess, she!

Where once their galleons blundered by

Our cargo ships are on their way,

And where their galleons rotting lie,

Our cargo ships are wrecked today.

For ever, 'till the world is done,

And all good merchantmen go down,

And dies the wind, as pales the sun,

Her smile will mask her frown.

THE TRANSPORT GEN'RAL FERGUSON [^[2]]

The transport Gen'ral Ferguson, she left the Golden Gate,

With a thousand rookies sweatin' in her hold;

An' the sergeants drove an' drilled them, an' the sun it nearly killed them,—

Till they learned to do whatever they were told.

The transport Gen'ral Ferguson, she lay at Honolu',

An' the rookies went ashore an' roughed the town,

So the sergeants they corralled them, and with butt and barrel quelled them,—

An' they limped aboard an' set to fryin' brown.

The transport Gen'ral Ferguson, she steamed to-ward the south,

And the rookies sweated morning, noon and night;

'Till the lookout sighted land, and they cheered each grain o' sand,—

For their blood was boilin' over for a fight.

The transport Gen'ral Ferguson, she tied up at the dock,

An' each rookie lugged his gun an' kit ashore,

An' a train it come and took 'em where the tropic sun could cook 'em,—

An' the sergeants they could talk to them of war.

The transport Gen'ral Ferguson, she had her bottom scraped,

For the first part of her labor it was done,

An' the rookies chased the Tagals and the Tagals they escaped,—

An' the rookies set and sweated in the sun.

The transport Gen'ral Ferguson, she loafed around awhile,

An' the rookies they was soldier boys by now,

For it don't take long to teach 'em—where the Tagal lead can reach 'em—

All about the which and why and when and how.

The transport Gen'ral Ferguson, she headed home again,

With a thousand heavy coffins in her hold;

They were soldered up and stenciled, they were numbered and blue penciled,—

And the rookies lay inside 'em stiff and cold.

The transport Gen'ral Ferguson, she reached the Golden Gate,

An' the derrick dumped her cargo on the shore;

In a pyramid they piled it—and her manifest they filed it,

In a pigeon-hole with half a hundred more.

The transport Gen'ral Ferguson, she travels up and down,

A-haulin' rookies to and from the war;

Outward-bound they sweat in Kharki; homeward bound they come in lead

And they wonder what they've got to do it for.

The transport Gen'ral Ferguson, she's owned by Uncle Sam,

An' maybe Uncle Sam could tell 'em why,

But he don't—and so he takes 'em out to fight, and sweat, and swear,

An' brings them home for plantin' when they die.

THE SPANISH MAIN

THE TRANSPORT GEN'RAL FERGUSON[[2]]

THE TRANSPORT GEN'RAL FERGUSON [^[2]]