Page:The Fall of the Alamo.djvu/108

 How then when scaled the foe our walls, they vied In rushing fortli with knife and bayonet To where a head appeared above the crest, And hurled them headlong in the yawning deep; And how at last, almost without command, They sallied from the gate and spread dismay And slaughter 'mong the routed enemy; And that, so far my eye-sight could observe. With but the loss of one,—one single man, Who, carried by his ardor far ahead Before the others, sank bedecked with wounds, And so was captured. Say, who was the man?

He was my brother.

What "? Thy brother James?

'Twas he, the true, the noble-hearted youth. Cut down in earliest bloom, in day-spring's glow. While on the walls he battled at my side. Three Mexicans upon the outmost wing Had clambered o'er the crest, and were about To leap beneath and ope the western gate. Whereon we two alone confronted them; My brother took one man and so did I. I had not fully yet dispatched my foe,