The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-08-11
CERvERA'S DOOM.

L will obey your order. but go TO my
| doom. Extract from Cervera's telegram
| to Blanco.
In the Santiago harbor, moving cautious,
moving slow.
Creep HisDanias hounds of ocean, all
their pulsing hearts aglow:
Stealing seward past the headlands, to-
ward the hulk whose heroes teach
| More by one dumb act of daring than
could centuries of speech,
| Till the harbor entrance sighted they
rush forward to their fare.
Barking in their hoarseSt thunderS as
they dart beyond the gate
But Columbia's Steel-ciad Seagles stand
ing watchful on the main
Leap TO meet the slender war-dogs slip
ping from the yard of Spain.
Awful. menacing. prophetic is the quick
responsive boom
Sweeping shoreward. sweeping seward.
knelling out the Spaniard's doom.
Underneath the sulphurous curtain do
our shotted dragons wheel
Licking out their red carnivorous tongues
and belching bolts of STEEL
And our cruisers bounding forward
-, through the sunlight red and dim.
All their whistles screaming terror, chase
the Spanish captains grim
Crash the siX-inch. roar the eight-inch,
boom the ten-inch guns today
And the black, spleen-loaded. vengeful,
twelve-inch threats begin to bray.
Oh. the storm that bursts in fury on the
doomed and fleeing ships
Never can be drawn by Inner nor be
told by human lipSi
Staggering on the shot-churned ocean in
tornado blasts of steel,
How the diving monsters CULVER struck
from cOnning-tower to keel
Loud upon the chilI-forged armor dins
the hot metallic hail,
PenetrateS the throbbing vitals, sweeps
the decks with fiery gale.
screaming. battering. Splintering. shat
tering. bursting with terrific roar,
Beating into pulp the seamen flooding all
the decks with
Searching through the silent turrets
where the cannoneers expire.
Tanning with its breath Tartarean all the
woodwork into fire,
Till the shell-shocked helmsmen turn
their sinking courses TO the land.
Where they. like bewildered -camels,
thrust their noses in the sand.
In its tube each slim torpedo. siumb' rous
giant. tranquil lies.
Till convulsed by hostile pounding it
Opes wides it's maniac eyes; d.
And it roars with voice of thunder as it
tears the decks asunder.
And arouses into frenzy the munitions
lying under;
And the ships are torn and shattered and
the wounded Shrek in pain.
And from every 0uaking masthead sinks
the yellow flag of Spain.
Rings no victory-shout triumphant when
the colors cease their flying:
Cheer mott" shouts noble captain for
poor devils. they are dying
On the shores of Santiago what was late
a nations pride,
Now but smoking hulls is kissing at the
climbing of the tide
Blasted. blasted completely by the
lightnings Freedom drove
AS if smitten by Thors hammer or the
thunderbolts of Jove.
And a thousand taTS are roasting,
cOffined in the heated steel.
Or are floating to the wolves snarling
Ger their horrid meal.
Black and gaunt and hungry vultures
stalk sedately on the beach.
that the waves will bring them
what their talons cannot reach.
have died to silence, battle
smoke has cleared away.
Natures peaceful hands erasing all the
horrors of the fray:
And the breakers now, as ever, beat the
coast with sullen boom.
Chanting thus in massive music the |
heroic Spaniard's doom.
William T. Dumas in Atlanta Journal. |