They fling their flags upon the morn,
Their safety’s held a thing for scorn,
As to the fray the Spaniards on the wings of war are borne;
Their sullen smoke-clouds writhe and reel,
And sullen are their ships of steel,
All ready, cannon, lanyards, from the fighting-tops to keel.
They cast upon the golden air
One glancing, helpless, hopeless prayer,
To ask that swift and thorough be the victory falling there;
Then giants with a cheer and sigh
Burst forth to battle and to die
Beneath the walls of Morro on that morning in July.
The _Teresa_ heads the haughty train,
To bear the Admiral of Spain,
She rushes, hurtling, whitening, like the summer hurricane;
El Morro glowers in his might;
Socapa crimsons with the fight;
The _Oquendo’s_ lunging lightning blazes through her somber night.
In desperate and eager dash
The _Vizcaya_ hurls her vivid flash,
As wild upon the waters her enormous batteries crash;
Like spindrift scuds the fleet _Colon_,
And, on her bubbling wake bestrown,
Lurch, hungry for the slaughter, _El Furor_ and _El Pluton_.
Round Santiago’s armored crest,
Serene, in their gray valor dressed,
Our behemoths lie quiet, watching well from south and west;
Their keen eyes spy the harbor-reek;
The signals dance, the signals speak;
Then breaks the blasting riot as our broadsides storm and shriek!
Quick, poising on her eagle-wings,
The _Brooklyn_ into battle swings;
The wide sea falls and wonders as the titan _Texas_ springs;
The _Iowa_ in monster-leaps
Goes bellowing above the deeps;
The _Indiana_ thunders as her terror onward sweeps.
And, hovering near and hovering low
Until the moment strikes to go,
In gallantry the _Gloucester_ swoops down on her double foe;
She volleys--the _Furor_ falls lame;
Again--and the _Pluton’s_ aflame;
Hurrah, on high she’s tossed her! Gone the grim destroyers’ fame!
And louder yet and louder roar
The _Oregon’s_ black cannon o’er
The clangor and the booming all along the Cuban shore.
She’s swifting down her valkyr-path,
Her sword sharp for the aftermath,
With levin in her glooming, like Jehovah in His wrath.
Great ensigns snap and shine in air
Above the furious onslaught where
Our sailors cheer the battle, danger but a thing to dare;
Our gunners speed, as oft they’ve sped,
Their hail of shrilling, shattering lead,
Swift-sure our rifles rattle, and the foeman’s decks are red.
Like baying bloodhounds lope our ships,
Adrip with fire their cannons’ lips;
We scourge the fleeing Spanish, whistling weals from scorpion-whips;
Till, livid in the ghastly glare,
They tremble on in dread despair,
And thoughts of victory vanish in the carnage they must bear.
Where Cuban coasts in beauty bloom,
Where Cuban breakers swirl and boom,
The _Teresa’s_ onset slackens in a scarlet spray of doom;
Near Nimanima’s greening hill
The streaming flames cry down her will,
Her vast hull blows and blackens, prey to every mortal ill.
On Juan Gonzales’ foaming strand
The _Oquendo_ plunges ’neath our hand,
Her armaments all strangled, and her hope a showering brand;
She strikes and grinds upon the reef,
And, shuddering there in utter grief,
In misery and mangled, wastes away beside her chief.
The _Vizcaya_ nevermore shall ride
From out Aserradero’s tide,
With hate upon her forehead ne’er again she’ll pass in pride;
Beneath our fearful battle-spell
She moaned and struggled, flared and fell,
To lie agleam and horrid, while the piling fires swell.
Thence from the wreck of Spain alone
Tears on the terrified _Colon_,
In bitter anguish crying, like a storm-bird forth she’s flown;
Her throbbing engines creak and thrum;
She sees abeam the _Brooklyn_ come,
For life she’s gasping, flying; for the combat is she dumb.
Till then the man behind the gun
Had wrought whatever must be done--
Here, now, beside our boilers is the fight fought out and won;
Where great machines pulse on and beat,
A-swelter in the humming heat
The Nation’s nameless toilers make her mastery complete.
The Cape o’ the Cross casts out a stone
Against the course of the _Colon_,
Despairing and inglorious on the wind her white flag’s thrown;
Spain’s last Armada, lost and wan,
Lies where Tarquino’s stream rolls on,
As round the world, victorious, looms the dreadnought _Oregon_.
The sparkling daybeams softly flow
To glint the twilight afterglow,
The banner sinks in splendor that in battle ne’er was low;
The music of our country’s hymn
Rings out like song of seraphim,
Fond memories and tender fill the evening fair and dim;
Our huge ships ride in majesty
Unchallenged o’er the glittering sea,
Above them white stars cluster, mighty emblem of the free;
And all adown the long sea-lane
The fitful bale-fires wax and wane
To shed their lurid lustre on the empire that was Spain.