And our flag through the hours of battle Flew on till the fighting was won. Oh, beautiful, dedicate banner, Our victory has only begun.
With such gunners as ours to defend you, So bright and beloved in the sky, While devotion and manhood attend you, Brave standard, continue on high. We were waiting that morning for colors. Old Glory forever shall fly!
Crossing the harbor, four lads in a motor launch Saw the invader host drop from the sky, Saw a torpedo’s white wake through the water Make for the stern of a vessel nearby.
“Jump!” cried the coxswain, “Here is my duty, Here is the logic for which I was born, One life asunder to stop the torpedo Ere from their bodies a hundred are torn!”
“Nay,” cried the bowman. “We’re in this together. Glory to God and such men as ye are!” Seizing a boat hook he jumped to the gunwhale, As mad as old Ahab, as fixed as a star.
Oh, the wild race in the harbor that morning! Prayed to his Diesel the kid engineer, “Fail me not now, O my beautiful engine!” Swiftly the launch and torpedo drew near.
Wake upon wake, the two masses converging, Never a word by the sternman was said. Oh, there was death in the harbor that morning! Under the keel the torpedo shaft fled.
Then with the force of a mighty harpooner, Melville’s dread hero, such bowman was he, Then from his arm the long boat hook went plunging Faster than death and destruction could flee.
Into the blades of the whirling propeller, Following after, the iron hook sank, Changing the mark where the war head exploded, Tumbling the rocks and a tree from the bank.
Then all around them the harbor was seething, Concussion and fire and shouting and fear, And they, too, are dead. Dead that motor launch coxswain, That bowman, and sternman and kid engineer!
A little while, O sacramental dead, Unvisited a little while yet be. You shall not lie forgotten nor alone While ships there are, and planes, and guns, and men. For now, more adamant, more fierce, more keen, In permanence and purpose fixed as stars, To finite manhood hereby we annex The infinite almightiness of God, And we shall be His judgment! Woe to that Ambitious offal sprung from Hell’s abyss Which catastrophically we shall destroy, Annihilate, forever make extinct.