Oregon at Malabon

Excerpt from Oregon at Malabon: And Other Poems Oregon at Malabon O'er verdant hills and valleys of Luzon A peaceful night had settled, and the stars Made glorious a clear, but moonless sky. The lights of old Manila one by one Appeared as night came on, and fireflies By thousands flitted in the foliage And made the bamboo and the mango woods Seem like some endless groves of Christmas trees. It was an ev'ning such as oft' delight The lovers who go forth to be alone With nature and themselves. But although there Were all the charms of ev'ning far and near, On every hand, Love stayed at home, while War In solemn majesty alone held sway. About Manila, north and east and south, A long, long line of fires marked the camps Of soldiers who held trenches to defend The place against the Filipino foe; While to the west great war ships floated on The tranquil waters of Manila Bay. The colored, changing signals on their masts And restless searchlights gave strange grandeur to The lovely scene. And northward, near at hand, The roofs of still another city rose, A quaint old city known as Malabon, Where lights gleamed from a thousand nipa huts; While near the Taliahan river, which Ran silently between the city and The rice field on the south, were well-armed troops Of small brown men entrenched in two long lines. And swarming through the streets of Malabon Were also hoards of Filipino men, There to prevent, if possible, with force About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.