Verse > Anthologies > James and Mary Ford, eds. > Every Day in the Year
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James and Mary Ford, eds.  Every Day in the Year.  1902.
 
February 15
The Spirit of the Maine
By Tudor Jenks (1857–1922)
 
          The blowing up of the Maine in the harbor of Havana on the night of Feb. 15, 1898, was the event which precipitated the war with Spain which had been impending for some months.

IN battle-line of sombre gray
  Our ships of war advance,
As Red Cross knights in holy fray
  Charged with avenging lance.
And terrible shall be thy plight,        5
  O fleet of cruel Spain!
For ever in our van doth fight
  The spirit of the Maine!
 
As when, beside Regillus Lake,
  The great twin brethren came        10
A righteous fight for Rome to make
  Against a deed of shame,
So now a ghostly ship shall doom
  The fleet of treacherous Spain,
Before her guilty soul doth loom        15
  The spirit of the Maine!
 
A wraith arrayed in peaceful white,
  As when asleep she lay
Above the traitorous mine that night
  Within Havana Bay,        20
She glides before the avenging fleet
  A sign of woe to Spain.
Brave though her sons, how shall they meet
  The spirit of the Maine?
 
 
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