The Gold-Gated West/Launching of the Battleship Oregon
LAUNCHING OF THE BATTLESHIP OREGON
O ship, like crested Pallas armed, O bride the hoary god hath charmed, Leap to his proud and strong embrace, In Freedom's squadron take thy place!
Northward, in sheen of crystal mail, A scarf of cloud upon his breast, Our mountain monarch, Hood, will hail The mighty daughter of the West; And hail with broad, uplifted shield, The sea, thy home and battle-field, While the vast hosts of phalanxed firs Swell the deep song of worshippers.
Hood's brow of prescience, wreathed with dreams, The mist through which his grandeur gleams In storm and calm, has brooded o'er The hardy few that erstwhile came And wrought in tears, and blood and flame, That stripes might stream and stars might soar, And lustrous shine thy chosen name.
Launched on the golden-gated bay, Be thine a royal bridal day; And with the waves' exultant kiss Come dreams of olden Salamis, When Greece was life's white morning star;—Come, welcome to a scene like this, The memories of Trafalgar, And Erie's crash of thunder, telling How Perry's warrior heart was swelling;—Come, through the sombre dusk of years, Decatur's drum-beat in Algiers, Come, echoing from a frosting lip, That whisper, "Don't give up the ship!"
To greet thy nuptials here behold, While o'er enchanted streams and woods October's misty splendor broods, Our forests lit with lamps of gold, And many a leafy mountain shrine, Dashed with the red autumnal wine, For thee a symbol and a sign Of fates serene and trust untold.
O, swift and strong and terrible, Go forth to guard our cherished shore Till all thy fated days are full And War's hoarse call is heard no more! Go forth, O warder of the free, And peerless may thy vigil be, Till cape and bay and cliff and crag Flash with the glory of the flag Triumphant yet on land and sea! And O, guard well the gleaming strand Of this, our fair Arcadian land, Won in the storms of years gone by, With drain of heart and wound of hand, When man could dare, and do, and die!
Be worthy of the mystic name These matchless vales and mountains bear; That in the tents of sunset Fame May twine a wreath for thee to wear. And when thy flag shall kiss the breeze Of these, our blue northwestern seas, Lo, white and strange and soaring high In the vast temples of the sky, The peaks our lisping children know A welcoming to thee will glow!
Helen's to Hood will pass the sign, And Jefferson, with brow benign, Will signal to the Sisters Three That the long watch was not in vain; For lo, upon the radiant main The mailed patrol of liberty! Here, at the mighty ocean gate, Columbia, in his pride, will greet The Boadicea of our fleet; And from embattled heights the voice Of cannon make the deep rejoice, And festal sunshine gleam upon The green, glad hills of Oregon, Thine and our own deep-bosomed State.