Page:The Fall of the Alamo.djvu/107

 Prado! thy luck is made! a minute's space Did more for thee than all thy life-time's race. [Exit Prado.]

A room in the upper story of the barracks of the Alamo. Col. Bowie (injured by a fall from the platform the day preceding the assault) is seen lying on a couch. Enter Col. Travis and Col. Crockett.

Hail, brave companions, hail! Thermopylae Has by your valor been eclipsed to-day. Oh! that your gallant deeds might have been seen By the admiring gaze of humanity. Alas! performed here in the western wild, They will escape the writer's graphic pen! Yet,—to have saved the land, the rising nation, That consciousness will ever be your part. How deeply mourn I my sinister fate That kept me from this glorious fight away. Still,—even to have witnessed it, what joy! How first,—each man upon his post they fired Deliberately into the hostile ranks, As though it were a friendly shooting-match;