Noon,—the woful work is done!
Not a Spanish ship remains;
But, of their eleven, none
Ever was so truly Spain's!
Which is prouder, they or we,
Thinking of Cavité's lee?
ENVOY
But remember, when we've ceased
Giving praise and reckoning odds,
Man shares courage with the beast,
Wisdom cometh from the gods.
Who would win, on land or wave,
Must be wise as well as brave.
Robert Underwood Johnson.
DEWEY AND HIS MEN
[May 1, 1898]
Glistering high in the midnight sky the starry rockets soar
To crown the height so soon to be uncrowned, Corregidor;
And moaning into the middle night resounds the answering shock
From Fraile's island battery within the living rock;
Like Farragut before him, so Dewey down the bay,
Past fort and mine, in single line, holds on toward Cavité.
When the earth was new a raven flew o'er the sea on a perilous quest,
By his broad black pinions buoyed up as he sought him a spot to rest;
So to-day from British China sweeps our Commodore 'mid the cheers
Of England's dauntless ships of steel, and into the night he steers,
With never a home but the furrowy foam and never a place for ease
Save the place he'll win by the dint and din of his long, lean batteries.
A misty dawn on the May-day shone, yet the enemy sees afar
On our ships-of-war great flags flung out as bright as the morning star;
Then the cannon of Spain crash over the main and their splendor flecks the ports
As the crackling thunder rolls along the frowning fleet and forts;
But the Olympia in her majesty leads up the broadening bay
And behind her come gaunt ships and dumb toward crested Cavité.