The fathers of our fathers they were men!-- Had they nursed delay as we do? had they sat thus deaf and dumb, With these cowards compromising year by year? Never hearing what they should hear, never saying what should come, While the courteous mask of Spain still hid a sneer! No! such news had roused their natures like a rolling battle-drum-- God of earth! and God of heaven! do we fear?-- The fathers of our fathers they were men!
The fathers of our fathers they were men!-- What are we who are so cautious, never venturing too far! Shall we, at the cost of honor, still keep peace? While we see the thousands starving and the struggling Cuban star, And the outraged form of Freedom on her knees! Let our long, steel ocean-bloodhounds, adamantine dogs of war, Sweep the yellow Spanish panther from the seas!-- The fathers of our fathers they were men!
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!
