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Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.

The Prison Ships, 1776 (abridged)

Thomas Walsh

  • Ode read at the Dedicatory exercises of the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument on Fort Greene, Washington Park, Brooklyn, New York, November 14, 1908.


  • O MARTYRDOM of hope!—to lie

    In youth and strength—and die

    ’Mid rotting hulks that once by every sea

    And star swung carelessly—

    To die becalmed in war’s black hell,

    Where in the noon’s wide blaze your hearts could soar

    With gull and eagle by each cherished shore

    Of home—where ye had sworn to dwell

    The fathers of the free.

    Blessed and radiant now!—look down

    In consecration of the solemn deed

    Which here commemorates this iron breed

    Of martyrs nameless in the clay

    As the true heroes of our newer day—

    World heroes—patterned not on king and demi-god

    Of charioted splendor or of crown

    Blood crusted—but on toilers in the sod,

    On reapers of the sea, on lovers of mankind,

    Whose bruisèd shoulders bear

    The lumbering wain of progress—all who share

    The crust and sorrows of our mortal lot—

    Lamps of the soul The Christ hath left behind

    To light the path whereon He faltered not.

    And ye, O sailors faring buoyant forth,

    Bear ye the tidings of this joy-swept main

    Where round the coasts of Celt or Dane

    Ye brave the sleet-mouthed north

    Or track the moon on some Sicilian wave

    Or lonely cape of Spain;

    Take ye the story of these comrades true

    Whose prison hulks sank here

    Where now such tides of men are poured

    As never surged o’er crag or fiord

    To stay the gulls with fear—

    Who yet such quest of glory know

    As never Argonaut of old

    Seeking the shores of gold—

    As never knight from wound and vigil pale

    Tracing o’er sunset worlds his Holy Grail.

    And lo!—to all the seas a pharos set

    In sign memorial! Through the glooms of Time

    ’Twill teach a sacrifice of self sublime

    O’er lash of storms as through corroding calms,

    Nor e’er alone shall shine

    Its love-bright parapet;

    But every star shall bring a golden alms;—

    The seething harbour line

    Glow ’neath its star-fed hives, its swing and flare

    Of Bridges;—while with pilgrim lamps from sea

    Shall grope the Dreadnought fleets;—while endless prayer

    Of dawns and sunsets floods the faces far

    Uplifted, tear-stained, to this Martyr shrine—

    Whose sister torch shall greet what Liberty

    Holds back to God,—earth’s brightest answering star.