<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Passengers of a Retarded Submersible</h1><h1 align="center" class="head"><span class="smallcaps">November</span>, 1916</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead"><span class="smallcaps">The</span> A<span class="smallcaps">merican People</span>:</p><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">What</span> was it kept you so long, brave German submersible?</p><p class="line">We have been very anxious lest matters had not gone well</p><p class="line">With you and the precious cargo of your country's drugs and dyes.</p><p class="line">But here you are at last, and the sight is good for our eyes,</p><p class="line">Glad to welcome you up and out of the caves of the sea.</p><p class="line">And ready for sale or barter, whatever your will may be.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead"><span class="smallcaps">The</span> C<span class="smallcaps">aptain of the Submersible</span></p><p class="line">Oh, do not be impatient, good friends of this neutral land,</p><p class="line">That we have been so tardy in reaching your eager strand.</p><p class="line">We were stopped by a curious chance just off the Irish coast,</p><p class="line">Where the mightiest wreck ever was lay crowded with a host</p><p class="line">Of the dead that went down with her; and some prayed us to bring them here</p><p class="line">That they might be at home with their brothers and sisters dear.</p><p class="line">We Germans have tender hearts, and it grieved us sore to say</p><p class="line">We were not a passenger ship, and to most we must answer nay,</p><p class="line">But if from among their hundreds they could somehow a half-score choose</p><p class="line">We thought we could manage to bring them, and we would not refuse.</p><p class="line">They chose, and the women and children that are greeting you here are those</p><p class="line">Ghosts of the women and children that the rest of the hundred chose.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead"><span class="smallcaps">The</span> A<span class="smallcaps">merican People</span>:</p><p class="line">What guff are you giving us, Captain! We are able to tell, we hope,</p><p class="line">A dozen ghosts, when we see them, apart from a periscope.</p><p class="line">Come, come, get down to business! For time is money, you know,</p><p class="line">And you must make up in both to us for having been so slow.</p><p class="line">Better tell this story of yours to the submarines, for we</p><p class="line">Know there was no such wreck, and none of your spookery.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead"><span class="smallcaps">The</span> G<span class="smallcaps">hosts of the Lusitania</span><span class="smallcaps">Women and Children</span></p><p class="line">O, kind kin of our murderers, take us back when you sail away;</p><p class="line">Our own kin have forgotten us. O Captain, do not stay!</p><p class="line">But hasten, Captain, hasten! The wreck that lies under the sea</p><p class="line">Shall be ever the home for us this land can never be.</p></div><p class="byline">William Dean Howells</p></body></html> · Great War