And thirty lay sick, and some were shot through; For the siege had been bitter, and bloody and long. "Surrender, or die!"—"Men, what will you do?” And Travis, great Travis, drew sword, quick and strong; Drew a line at his feet you go? Will you come? I die with my wounded, in the Alamo." Will Then Bowie 2 gasped, "Guide me over that line!" Till all, sick or well, all, all, save but one, One man. Then a woman stopped praying and slow Then that one coward fled, in the night, in that night Of home; of tomorrow; of God and the right, Till dawn; then Travis sent his single last cannon-shot, In answer to insolent Mexico, From the old bell-tower of the Alamo. Then came Santa Anna; a crescent of flame! 4 Then the red escalade; then the fight hand to hand; Such an unequal fight as never had name Since the Persian hordes 5 butchered that doomed Spartan band. All day—all day and all night, and the morning, so slow, Through the battle smoke mantling the Alamo. 2. Bowie. A Georgian after whom the bowie knife is named; active in the movement for the independence of Texas. 3. Crockett. A famous frontiersman and hunter. 4. Escalade. An attack on a fortified place, in which an attempt is made to pass the walls, ramparts, etc., by means of ladders or by scaling. Spartan band: 5. Persian Hordes At the battle of Thermopylae, 480 B. C., three hundred Spartans under Leonidas, with about six thousand allies, withstood for two days the attack. of an immense army of Persians under Xerxes. At last the Persians succeeded in getting into the rear of the Spartans. Most of the allies sought safety in retreat, but the Spartans stood their ground and were slain to a man. Then silence! Such silence! Two thousand lay dead In a crescent outside! And within? Not a breath Save the gasp of a woman, with gory, gashed head, All alone, with her dead there, waiting for death; And she but a nurse. Yet when shall we know Another like this of the Alamo? Shout "Victory, victory, victory ho!" I say, 'tis not always with the hosts that win: that the victory, high or low, I say Is given the hero who grapples with sin, 45 THE BATTLE FLAG AT SHENANDOAH JOAQUIN MILLER The tented field wore a wrinkled trown, And the emptied church from the hill looked down On the emptied road and the emptied town, That summer Sunday morning. And here was the blue, and there was the gray; And a wide green valley rolled away Between where the battling armies lay, That sacred Sunday morning. And Custer sat, with impatient will, As he watched with glass from the oak-set hill, Then fast he began to chafe and to fret; "Ride over, some one,” he haughtily said, "And bring it to me! Why, in bars blood red Then a West-born lad, pale-faced and slim, Rode out, and touching his cap to him, Swept down, swept swift as Spring swallows swim, That anxious Sunday morning. On, on through the valley! up, up anywhere! And he caught up the flag, and around his waist All honor and praise to the trusty steed! O deadly shot! and O shower of lead' But he gains the oaks! Men cheer in their might! Why, he is embracing the boy outright But, soft! Not a word has the pale boy said. So wrap this flag to his soldier's breast; Into stars and stripes it is stained and blest; 46 THE SONG OF THE CAMP BAYARD TAYLOR "Give us a song!" the soldiers cried, When the heated guns of the camps allied The dark Redan,1 in silent scoff, Lay grim and threatening, under; And the tawny mound of the Malakoff 2 No longer belched its thunder. 1. Redan. A fortification. The story has to do with the Crimean War between England with her allies and Russia, 1854-1856. 2. Malakoff. A Russian tower in Sebastopol, Crimea. There was a pause. A guardsman said: They lay along the battery's side, Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde, They sang of love, and not of fame; Voice after voice caught up the song, Rose like an anthem, rich and strong,- Dear girl, her name he dared not speak, Beyond the darkening ocean burned. And once again a fire of hell Rained on the Russian quarters, With scream of shot, and burst of shell, And bellowing of the mortars! 3. Severn, Clyde, Shannon. Rivers in England, Scotland, and Ireland. |