A slightly earlier, very slightly different variant of the 1906 text above appeared in the "Buffalo [N.Y.] Courier Express" (June 11, 1905):

"The gunner's mate and I were thinking of the happy days we had put in while in the service, and we sang right merrily:

"From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli,
We have fought our country's battles on the land and on the sea.
From the temples of the dragon to the far off Philippines,
Though our luck be sometimes hard, who would not be a marine?"

"The gunner's mate and I shouted the last words of the song."



The references to China and the Philippines could not reasonably have been in the "old ballad of the corps" whose first two lines were quoted (above) in 1898.


Just to confirm "O'Boyle's" upthread note of 01 Sept 98, the 1956 "Marine Officer's Guide" observes:

"Regardless of its origins, however, *all Marines get to their feet whenever 'The Marines' Hymn' is played or sung*." (Emphasis in the original."