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. WALLACE RICE. (By special permission of the author.) 54 BALLAD OF PACO TOWN