Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/84

76 The ambulanza slowly passing, trailing its red drip, Workmen searching after damages, making
 * indispensable repairs,

The fall of grenades through the rent roof—the
 * fan-shaped explosion,

The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in
 * the air.

Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general—he
 * furiously waves with his hand,

He gasps through the clot, Mind not me—mind—
 * the entrenchments.

I tell not the fall of Alamo, Not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo, The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo. Hear now the tale of the murder in cold blood of four
 * hundred and twelve young men.

Retreating, they had formed in a hollow square, with
 * their baggage for breastworks,

Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy's,
 * nine times their number, was the price they took
 * in advance,

Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition
 * gone,

They treated for an honorable capitulation, received
 * writing and seal, gave up their arms, and
 * marched back prisoners of war.

They were the glory of the race of rangers, Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship,