"CUANDO SALIDE LA HABANA"
"I sometimes think that never blows so red
The rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;
That every hyacinth the garden wears
Dropt in her lap from some once lovely head."
The dream days have come and gone. We have left historic Santiago with
its forts and battle-fields, and the beautiful harbour of busy
commercial Cienfuegos; we have skirted along the southern coast of Cuba,
Pearl of the Antilles, through the Yucatan Channel, into the Gulf of
Mexico, and now we are come to Havana, where countless voices call us in
every direction both day and night.
And yet it is not of Santiago, the old _Merrimac_ lying in midchannel,
El Caney, or San Juan Hill that I am writing to-day--no, nor of the
wrecks of Cervera's fleet strewn in rocking skeletons along the coast.
No, those stories have long since been well told you--those tragic
stories of battle and death, gone now into the past with the echoes of
muffled drums and the shuffling feet of sick soldier boys, dragging
themselves home when the day of vengeance was over. No, it is not of
that I am writing, but of a day which I gave to you, O mothers of our
glorious marines! and I take it now from out the memories of those sunny
isles, a precious keepsake, that it may be yours for ever.
You are known to me, yet I cannot speak your names. You are near to me,
yet the continent divides us. Your eyes speak to me, and yet, should we
meet, you would pass unrecognised. A universal love, a universal memory
has called you to me, and space cannot separate us.
In this city of beauty, though alluring at every turn, there was one
pilgrimage, come what may, I would not fail to make. The Morro and
Cabañas might be slighted, but not that patch of green earth away over
the hill where the boys of the _Maine_ lie buried so near the waters
that engulfed them.
[Illustration: WRECK OF THE MAINE
Havana Harbour, Cuba
Copyright, 1900, by Detroit Photographic Co.]
Far from the city they rest, where none may trouble their deep slumbers.
Their only monument a bare worn path where thousands of those who loved
your boys and honoured their memory have trodden down the grass about
the lowly bed.
It was a day as still as heaven, when in the City of the Dead I silently
took my way; and coming to their long home I knelt down in the moist
coverlet of grass and folding my hands looked up into the infinite depth
of the blue sky, which dropped its peaceful curtain so tenderly over
them. I seemed to stand upon a sun-kissed summit, from which I might
scan the whole earth. And it was from there, afar off, I felt the
yearning of your tears. I reached down to the earth and gathered some
humble little flowers which pitying had throbbed out their sweet souls
over the blessed dead; and I held them lovingly in my hands, and then
placed them within the leaves of a book, thinking that some day when we
should meet I would give them to you. And now they wait for your coming,
O mothers! I could give you naught more precious.
Yes, the days have come and gone as all days must, and we shall soon
have left the Isles of Endless Summer. But so long as life lasts, their
radiance will enfold us, and when the day is done, we shall draw the
curtain well content, knowing that no greater beauty can await us than
this fair earth has brought.
[Illustration: CABAÑAS, LA PUNTA, AND HARBOUR ENTRANCE
Havana, Cuba
Copyright, 1900, by Detroit Photographic Co.]