And they have thrust our shattered dead away in foreign graves,
Exiled forever from the port the homesick sailor craves!
They trusted once in Spain,
They're trusting her again!
And with the holy care of our own sacred slain!
No, no, the Stripes and Stars
Must wave above our tars.
Bring them home!
On a thousand hills the darling dead of all our battles lie,
In nooks of peace, with flowers and flags, but now they seem to cry
From out their bivouac:
"Here every good man Jack
Belongs. Nowhere but here—with us.
So bring them back."
And on the Cuban gales,
A ghostly rumor wails,
"Bring us home!"
Poltroon, the people that neglects to guard the bones, the dust,
The reverenced relics its warriors have bequeathed in trust!
But heroes, too, were these
Who sentinell'd the seas
And gave their lives, to shelter us in careless ease.
Shall we desert them, slain,
And proffer them to Spain
As alien mendicants,—these martyrs of our Maine?
No! Bring them home!
Rupert Hughes.
At last, the investigation was ended, and showed that the Maine had been blown up from the outside, probably by a submarine mine, exploded by men who wore the uniform of Spain. The report reached Congress March 28, 1898, and on April 11 President McKinley asked Congress for authority to establish an independent government in Cuba.
EL EMPLAZADO
El Emplazado, the Summoned, the Doomed One,
Spain whom the nations denounce and abhor,
Robe thy dismay in the black sanbenito,
Come to the frowning tribunal of war.
Curst were thy minions, their roster and scutcheon,
Alvas, Alfonsos, Archarchons of hate;
Pillared on bigotry, pride, and extortion,
Topples to ruin thy mansion of state.
Violence, Cruelty, Intrigue, and Treason.
These the false courtiers who flattered thy throne;
Empires, thy sisters, forbode thee disaster,
Even thy children their mother disown.
Suppliant Cuba, thy daughter forsaken,
Famished and bleeding and buffeted sore,
Ghastly from gashes and stabs of thy rancor,
Binds up her wounds at an alien door.