To The Men Who Went Down On The Titanic.
By Margaret Steele Anderson
(News Item: "It remains true that two hundred English and American men were sacrificed for as many peasant women.")
Once more I read, writ out in blood and tears,
Across this midnight page of sea and sky,
The legend of our English race that fears,
never death, but to refuse to die!
Soldier and merchant, men of bench and bar,
Of brush and pen, of gold deep-multiplied.
To those poor women, peasants from afar.
You gave your places, and in giving died!
Yet not for these, oh, not for these alone.
You made the last, the lasting sacrifice!
On those dark seas great Honor called her own.
All women's faces set before their eyes!
Lord of the virtues, spare, O spare us such!
We cannot live without this grace from thee;
Gold, statecraft, beauty, yea, we need them much.
But more, ah, God!, this ancient gallantry!