Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE DESTROYER OF DESTROYERS, by WALLACE RICE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE DESTROYER OF DESTROYERS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: From santiago, spurning the morrow
Last Line: Wainwright! The gloucester!
Alternate Author Name(s): Groot, Cecil De
Subject(s): Gloucester (ship); Navy - United States; Santiago, Cuba; Sea Battles; Spanish-american War (1898); Troy; Wainwright, Richard (1817-1862); American Navy; Naval Warfare


FROM Santiago, spurning the morrow,
Spain's ships come steaming, big with black sorrow:
Over the ocean, first on our roster,
Runs Richard Wainwright, glad on the Gloucester.
Boast him, and toast him!
Wainwright! The Gloucester!

Great ships and gaunt ships, steel-clad and sable,
Roll on resplendent, monsters of fable:
Crash all our cannon, quick Maxims rattle.
Red death and ruin rush through the battle;
Red death and dread death
Ravage and rattle.

Speed on Spain's cruisers, towers of thunder:
Calm rides the Gloucester, though the waves wonder;
Morro roars at her, enemies looming
On their wakes heave her, vast through the glooming;
Thunders and wonders
Speak from the glooming.

Sped are Spain's cruisers; then 'mid the clangor
Dart her destroyers, lurid with anger;
Shouts Richard Wainwright, quivers the Gloucester;
Where the Furor goes Wainwright has crossed her.
Boast him, and toast him!
Wainwright! The Gloucester!

Wide to the westward El Furor flutters:
Hid in bright vapors there Wainwright mutters;
Under Socapa races the faster,
Smiles at Spain's gunners, laughs at disaster;
Aiming and flaming
Faster and faster.

Wide to the westward El Pluton plunges;
At her with rapiers now Wainwright lunges!
Swords of fierce scarlet, blades blue as lightning;
Rapid guns snapping, little guns brightening;
Four-pounders, six-pounders,
Lunging like lightning.

Done the destroyers, blazing and bursting:
Berserker Wainwright rides to their worsting;
Seethe the Pluton's sides, soon to exhaust her;
Flames the Furor's deck, doomed by the Gloucester.
Boast him, and toast him!
Wainwright! The Gloucester!

Where the Pluton lies lifts the red leven --
Fire-clouds prodigious dash against Heaven
Where the Pluton lay void swells the ocean,
Shattered and sunken, spent her devotion;
Waves where wet graves were,
Deep in the ocean.

Shrieking toward Cuba, agonized, broken,
El Furor's hasting, her fate bespoken;
There in the shallows 'mid the white surges
Her guns, deserted, moan out their dirges;
Swelling and knelling
Through the white surges.

Wainwright in mercy does his endeavor:
Some he shall rescue; more rest for ever --
Say a prayer for them, one kindly Ave.
Spain weeps her wounded, wails a lost navy;
Fails them, bewails them,
Says them an Ave.

Off Santiago, when from beleaguer
Rushed forth Cervera, daring and eager,
Who stood Spain's onset? Who met and tossed her?
Wainwright, the Maine's man, glad on the Gloucester!
Boast him, and toast him!
Wainwright! The Gloucester!





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