


From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Ragtime! is a poem written by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in the The Daily Telegraph on 30 april 1912, and collected in The Guards Came Through and Other Poems on 16 december 1919.



["During the catastrophe the band of the Titanic played negro melodies and ragtime until the last moment, when they broke into a hymn." — Daily Paper.]

Ragtime! Ragtime! Keep it going still!
Let them hear the ragtime! Play it with a will!
Women in the lifeboats, men upon the wreck,
Take heart to hear the ragtime lilting down the deck.

Ragtime! Ragtime! Yet another tune!
Now the "Darkey Dandy," now "The Yellow Coon!"
Brace against the bulwarks if the stand's askew,

There's glowing hell beneath us where the shattered boilers roar,
There's nothing more that you can do, and nothing you can mend,
Only keep the ragtime playing to the end.

Don't forget the time, boys! Eyes upon the score!
Never heed the wavelets sobbing down the floor!
Play it as you played it when with eager feet
A hundred pair of dancers were stamping to the beat.

Stamping to the ragtime down the lamp-lit deck,
With shine of glossy linen and with gleam of snowy neck,
They've other thoughts to think to-night, and other things to do,

One hymn of hope from dying hands on dying ears to fall—