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Guards Came Through and other Poems

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<h2><SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_65" title="65"> </SPAN>RAGTIME!</h2> <p class="subheading" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.5em;">[“During the catastrophe the band of the <i>Titanic</i> played negro melodies and ragtime until the last moment, when they broke into a hymn.”—<span class="small-caps">Daily Paper.</span>]</p> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="line"><span class="small-caps">Ragtime!</span> Ragtime! Keep it going still!</div> <div class="line">Let them hear the ragtime! Play it with a will!</div> <div class="line">Women in the lifeboats, men upon the wreck,</div> <div class="line">Take heart to hear the ragtime lilting down the deck.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="line">Ragtime! Ragtime! Yet another tune!</div> <div class="line">Now the “Darkey Dandy,” now “The Yellow Coon!”</div> <SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_66" title="66"> </SPAN> <div class="line">Brace against the bulwarks if the stand's askew,</div> <div class="line">Find your footing as you can, but keep the music true!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="line">There's glowing hell beneath us where the shattered boilers roar,</div> <div class="line">The ship is listing and awash, the boats will hold no more!</div> <div class="line">There's nothing more that you can do, and nothing you can mend,</div> <div class="line">Only keep the ragtime playing to the end.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="line">Don't forget the time, boys! Eyes upon the score!</div> <div class="line">Never heed the wavelets sobbing down the floor!</div> <div class="line">Play it as you played it when with eager feet</div> <div class="line">A hundred pair of dancers were stamping to the beat.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_67" title="67"> </SPAN> <div class="line">Stamping to the ragtime down the lamp-lit deck,</div> <div class="line">With shine of glossy linen and with gleam of snowy neck,</div> <div class="line">They've other thoughts to think to-night, and other things to do,</div> <div class="line">But the tinkle of the ragtime may help to see them through.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="line">Shut off, shut off the ragtime! The lights are falling low!</div> <div class="line">The deck is buckling under us! She's sinking by the bow!</div> <div class="line">One hymn of hope from dying hands on dying ears to fall—</div> <div class="line">Gently the music fades away—and so, God rest us all!</div> </div></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />

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