Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/294

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"These are the tars that dared explore
The new Antarctic world,
And nobly on that frozen shore
Columbia’s flag unfurled.

"The Fiji group they have surveyed
With well-instructed hearts;
And all those islands, reefs, and bays,
See pictured on their charts."
She paused; and lo! from Freedom’s eye
There fell a crystal tear.
"Two sons I’ve lost," the goddess cried;
"Two sons I loved most dear."

"Nay, Freedom, quiet each mournful sigh;
Those crystal drops restrain;
The sequel shall relight thine eye
With pleasure’s beam again.
We are the men our chieftain led
O’er dark Malolo’s plain;
Before us hosts of Indians fled,
And left two hundred slain.

"We are the men that burned their town,
Well fortified and new;
Destroyed their cattle, fruits cut down,
Because thy sons they slew.
On hands and knees that murd’rous host
Did crawl our chief to meet —
They owned ’twas retribution just —
Begged pardon at his feet.

"To Mauna Loa’s fiery top
These daring tars have scaled;
And there, o’er all the science group,
Our captain has surveyed.