Too proud to fight? I'm not so sure--our skipper now and then Has lectured to us on patrol on foreign ships and men, And other nation's submarines, when cruising round the Bight; And 'seems to me--when they begin--the Yankee chaps can fight. Why, if I was in the army (which I ain't--and no regrets) And had my pick of Generals--from London's latest pets, To Hannibal and Wellington--to follow whom I chose, I wouldn't think about it long--I'd give the job to those Who fought across a continent for three long years and more (I bet the neutral papers didn't say in 'sixty-four Of Jackson, Sherman, Lee and Grant--"The Yanks can only shout"-- That lot was somewhere near the front when pluck was handed out); But what the Skipper said was this; "There's only been but one Successful submarine attack before this war begun, And it wasn't on a liner on the easy German plan, But on a well-found man-of-war, and Dixon was the man Who showed us how to do the trick, a tip for me and you, And I'd like to keep the standard up of Dixon and his crew, For they hadn't got a submarine that cost a hundred thou', But a leaky little biscuit-box, and stuck upon her bow A spar torpedo like a mine, and they and Dixon knew That if they sank the enemy they'd sink the _David_ too. She'd drowned a crew or two before--they dredged her up again, And manned and pushed her off to sea.--My oath, it's pretty plain They had some guts to give away, that tried another trip In a craft they knew was rather more a coffin than a ship; And they carried out a good attack, and did it very well. As a model for the future, why, it beats the books to Hell, A tradition for the U.S.A., and, yes--for England too; For they were men with English names, and kin to me and you, And I'd like to claim an ancestor with Dixon when he died At the bottom of the river at the _Housatonic's_ side." STONEWALL JACKSON STONEWALL JACKSON. Over the low Virginian farms the smoke of the ev'ning rose and flowed, The scent of cedar hung in the air--the scent of burning sap, And up the valley the murmur died, the sound of feet on a dusty road-- A clatter and ring of horse and guns that led to Ashby's Gap. And the Blue Ridge called to the Shenandoah stream, As the Massanutton hills grew black-- "Look your last, Shenandoah--where the bayonets gleam, On your man who is never coming back. "Ah! Manassas, look again on the glimmer of the steel That you lit with the red fires' glow, When the Grey men roared at an all-night meal, Look again as the Grey men go. "He is looking back at us with a hand across his eyes, Look your last, Shenandoah, as he rides To a death beyond the Gap where the dust-clouds rise, O'er the road that the greenwood hides.