With a shout of joy the rocket stars Shot up through the evening air, Triumphantly they reached the sky And the stars of God were there. "Make way!" the rocket stars cried out. "Make way, and give us place; We have a mission to perform, We've travelled leagues of space. We're sent up here to celebrate A glorious country's birth-- Make way! But a moment we can stay, Ere we die and fall to earth."
Then spake the old and kindly stars, "Ye be bright, oh rocket-spawn, But we are here since the morning stars Sang at Creation's dawn. By the Master Hand we were hurled on high To celebrate the day. We, too, but shine for the moment Time, And then we fade for aye. But have your way, oh tiny sparks, And while ye may, shine on." Ere the kindly voices ceased to speak, The rocket stars were gone.
[Illustration: Entrance to Havana Harbor, showing Mud-dunes in the Foreground.]
It is six months since the American administration in Havana began, and in that time many important changes have been made and many more are well under way; and the new ideas that are eventually destined to supplant the customs of the last century are fast taking a firm hold on the country. Even for those who have tried to follow this progress in detail in the newspapers it is not easy to realize the full extent of what has been accomplished, or of the steady hard work that is going on. Very few bear in mind the fact that a comparatively large section of our regular army is engaged in it here and elsewhere in Cuba. Without the blare of trumpets and without the inspiring strains of music the same heroes that came home fever-stricken, wan, and worn from that terrible struggle before Santiago are again facing a more subtle danger and fighting none the less hard and all in the same cause, but now there are no flaring headlines in our daily press, no bulletins to tell of the fight, because it is only against an unseen foe and there is no noise--but the hard work is there. Regiment after regiment of the volunteers goes home, but these men who "serve for pay" are sent down to the island again before they have rid themselves of the fever contracted while standing knee-deep in water in the trenches around Santiago. Now, it is hard work all day long under a burning tropical sun and many nights of weary patrol in the pest-hole of all creation--plain hard work to start a republic on the list of nations, to teach a people how to govern themselves who have before known nothing but the lash. All honor is due to these men who are doing this work; and our people are too prone to forget it, simply because the actual results are not immediately and always in evidence.