Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin
By Madison Julius Cawein
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!