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!
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