St. Thomas

Very fair and full of promise     Lay the island of St. Thomas:     Ocean oer its reefs and bars     Hid its elemental scars;     Groves of cocoanut and guava     Grew above its fields of lava.     So the gem of the Antilles     Isles of Eden, where no ill is     Like a great green turtle slumbered     On the sea that it encumbered.     Then said William Henry Seward,     As he cast his eye to leeward,     Quite important to our commerce     Is this island of St. Thomas.     Said the Mountain ranges, Thankee,     But we cannot stand the Yankee     Oer our scars and fissures poring,     In our very vitals boring,     In our sacred caverns prying,     All our secret problems trying,     Digging, blasting, with dynamit     Mocking all our thunders! Damn it!     Other lands may be more civil;     Bust our lava crust if we will!     Said the Sea, its white teeth gnashing     Through its coral-reef lips flashing,     Shall I let this scheming mortal     Shut with stone my shining portal,     Curb my tide and check my play,     Fence with wharves my shining bay?     Rather let me be drawn out     In one awful waterspout!     Said the black-browed Hurricane,     Brooding down the Spanish Main,     Shall I see my forces, zounds!     Measured by square inch and pounds,     With detectives at my back     When I double on my track,     And my secret paths made clear,     Published oer the hemisphere     To each gaping, prying crew?     Shall I? Blow me if I do!     So the Mountains shook and thundered,     And the Hurricane came sweeping,     And the people stared and wondered     As the Sea came on them leaping:     Each, according to his promise,     Made things lively at St. Thomas.     Till one morn, when Mr. Seward     Cast his weather eye to leeward,     There was not an inch of dry land     Left to mark his recent island.     Not a flagstaff or a sentry,     Not a wharf or port of entry,     Only to cut matters shorter     Just a patch of muddy water     In the open ocean lying,     And a gull above it flying.