Where strong Cavité stood to oppose,—
Where, from a sheen of silver and rose,
A thronging of masts, a soaring of towers,
The beautiful city arose.
How fine and fair! But the shining air
With a thousand shattered thunders there
Flapped and reeled. For the fighting foe—
We had caught him in his lair.
Surprised, unready, his proud ships lay
Idly at anchor in Bakor Bay:—
Unready, surprised, but proudly bold,
Which was ever the Spaniard's way.
Then soon on his pride the dread doom fell,
Red doom,—for the ruin of shot and shell
Lit every vomiting, bursting hulk
With a crimson reek of hell.
But to the brave though beaten, hail!
All hail to them that dare and fail!
To the dauntless boat that charged our fleet
And sank in the iron hail!
* * * * *
Manila Bay! Manila Bay!
How proud the song on our lips to-day!
A brave old song of the true and strong,
And the will that has its way;
Of the blood that told in the days of Drake
When the fight was good for the fighting's sake!
For the blood that fathered Farragut
Is the blood that fathered Blake;
And the pride of the blood will not be undone
While war's in the world and a fight to be won.
For the master now, as the master of old,
Is "the man behind the gun."
The dominant blood that daunts the foe,
That laughs at odds, and leaps to the blow,—
It is Dewey's glory to-day, as Nelson's
A hundred years ago!