"Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin"

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I.

  Behold! we have gathered together our battleships near and afar;
  Their decks they are cleared for action, their guns they are shotted
  for war:
  From the East to the West there is hurry, in the North and the South
  a peal
  Of hammers in fort and shipyard, and the clamor and clang of steel;
  And the roar and the rush of engines, and clanking of derrick and
  crane--
  Thou art weighed in the Scales and found wanting, the balance of God,
  O Spain!


  II.

  Behold! I have stood on the mountains, and this was writ in the
  sky:--
  "She is weighed in the Scales and found wanting, the balance God
  holds on high!"
  The balance He once weighed Babylon, the Mother of Harlots, in:
  One scale holds thy pride and thy power and empire, begotten of sin;
  Heavy with woe and torture, the crimes of a thousand years,
  Mortared and welded together with fire and blood and tears;
  In the other, for justice and mercy, a blade with never a stain,
  Is laid the Sword of Liberty, and the balance dips, O Spain!


  III.

  Summon thy vessels together! great is thy need for these!--
  Cristobal Colon, Vizcaya, Oquendo, and Maria Terese--
  Let them be strong and many, for a vision I had by night,
  That the ancient wrongs thou hast done the world came howling to the
  fight;
  From the New-World shores they gathered, Inca and Aztec slain,
  To the Cuban shot but yesterday, and our own dead seamen, Spain!


  IV.

  Summon thy ships together, gather a mighty fleet!
  For a strong young Nation is arming, that never hath known defeat.
  Summon thy ships together, there on thy blood-stained sands!
  For a shadowy army gathers with manacled feet and hands,
  A shadowy host of sorrows and shames, too black to tell,
  That reach, with their horrible wounds, for thee to drag thee down to
  Hell;
  A myriad phantoms and spectres, thou warrest against in vain--
  Thou art weighed in the Scales and found wanting, the balance of God,
  O Spain!

© Madison Julius Cawein