The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1912-06-07
(The Titanic)

(The Titanic)
Cursed the ship that boldly wantoned
With the forces man can't chain
That defiant and abandoned
Raced her course across the main.
Stay, o puerile man, your Wanting,
Challenging Gods holy wrath;
Every moment you're confronting
Hidden dangers in your path.
On the oceans CLASSY bosom,
Far away from shore or shoal,
God can mass up mountains gruesome
That may crush your naughty soul.
From the oceans torrid fountains,
In the Alembic of the north,
God Celebrates icy mountains
At his will to issue forth.
Stay, o ship, your mad careering,
Stay your course while Heaven al
lows;
Ocean-mountains, lark, are rearing
Ger your prov, their sullen brows.
All! too late the needed warning!
All! Too late! Too late! Too late!
Scenes of revelry turned to mourning
| AS the ship veered to her fate!
In the crash which, to one level,
Voyagers of all stations shocked;
Helpless babes, like men primeval,
| In the lap of nature rocked.
Human triumphs and devices
Dashed away like oceans foam;
Nothing, in this crucial crisis,
| Left them but their Fathers home.
Palled in darkness, dire, abysmal,
Wierder than madman's dream,
Rendered blacker and more dismal
By the torch-light's lurid CLEAN;
Blacker for the blackness rifted
By the iceberg's CHASTITY sheen
Like a ghoul it's crest uplifted,
| Contumelious, serene
| Meath deaths pinions, sable, droop-
ing,
With his talons at their threats,
Heroes, doomed, with perils coping,
To save others, lowered the boats.
Not for selfish gain were bartered
| Lives whose loss the world de-
plores,
But for others loved ones martyred
Were those men the world adores.
Pallid with suppressed emotion,
Living in their latest breath,
Christ-like sacrifice, devotion,
Living-Him in loves wierd death.
In the zenith of their splendor,
Strong in manhood's prime and
pride,
Stars the world could least surrender,
Vanished meath the ebon tide.
But the radiance of their glory
Meier meath Lethe's wave shall
dim;
They shall shine in song and story
Chant, o world, their requiem!
With those names that in the cluster
OF earth's jewels are impearled,
Is woman's name whose luster
Sheds resplendence Ger the world
Through the panic's blind confusion,
Faithful at her husbands side,
She declined as an intrusion
Proffered help, to him denied
Lovely woman, men defended,
Suffering life they'd fain abjure,
Imaged Him, from Heaven descended
Who for us life's burdens bore.
And the hymn in which men lifted
Their aspiring souls to Heaven,
BY woman, Heaven-gifted,
| To a sinking world was given.
Through the solitude, nocturnal,
| Rose that glorious symphony,
And the prayer, to heights supernal
Nearer, oh, My God, to Theei"
Half submerged in icy pillows,
Standing in that living tomb,
| Billows chanting funeral dirges,
AS the ship sank to her doom;
Men toiled to save others only,
| Bathed in sweat Of agony,
Passing, like our Savior, lonely,
Through LIES dark Getnsemane.
| Then the pause-the crucial period
| Naught to do but wait and pray,
And to cherish memories, myriad,
AS the last boat pulled away,
In that hour of passive anguish,
No more duties to perform,
No more foes for them to vanquish,
| Pulses beating full and warm.
Who may know the fond emotions
Thrilling each heroic breast,
| Speeding thoughts across wide oceans
To the ones they loved the best?
Who may know the hopeless yearn-
ing
| For the home in some fair land
Loved ones waiting their returning.
| All now wrecked on sorrows
| strand?
With thy rod, o Father, seattle us.
We will meekly bear the smart,
But this scene of tragic pathos
OVerWhelmS the staunchest heart