Ballads of valor and victory being stories in song from the annals of America / by Clinton Scollard and Wallace Rice [electronic text]

Spain's Last Armada

(July 3, 1898)

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 blinding lightning blazes through her sombre night.

In desperate and eager dash The Vizcaya hurls her vivid flash, As wild upon the water 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 grey 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.

There, 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! Leon has lost her; gone the twin destroyers' fame!

And louder yet and louder roar The Oregon's artilleries 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 leven 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, Swiftsure our rifles rattle: and the foeman's decks are red.

Like haying bloodhounds lope our ships, Adrip with fire their cannon's lips; We scourge the fleeing Spanish, whistling weals from scorpion-whips; Till, livid in the ghastly glare, They tremble on in drear despair, And thoughts of victory vanish in the carnage they must bear.

Where Cuban blossoms gayly 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.

To Juan Gonzales' foaming strand The Oquendo staggers '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 Asseradero's tide, With hate upon her forehead never shall she pass in pride; Beneath our fearful battle-spell She moaned and struggled, flared and fell, To lie agleam and horrid while her 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 has cast 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 purls 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 summer sea, Above them white stars cluster, mighty emblem of the free; And all adown the long sea-lane The fitful balefires wax and wane To shed their lurid lustre on the empire that was Spain.