“Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin”

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!

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!

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!

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!