Page:The Fall of the Alamo.djvu/119

 A thousand times I have confronted death In my own cause, in warfare hardly glorious; And should I now by cowardice and fear Belie the stainless record of my life, Now when a martyr's crown, the highest prize To which I have aspired, is in my reach? No, Colonel Bradburn! tell thy tyrant lord That David Crockett always has abhorred The name of bondage from his earliest breath And is enjoyed to prove this by his death. [From his couch.] I cannot stand erect, as it were meet, To hurl my bold defiance at thy feet; Know then that only over Bowie's bier Thy master e'er will hold his entry here. Yea, we will save, our faithful swords in hand, The cherished freedom of our native land, Or gladly fall, with this our battle-cry: "Free men we live, and free men we will die!" Free men we live, and free men we will die!