From 'midst these walls, whose ruins spread around,
And scattered clods that heap the ensanguined ground,
Three thousand souls of warriors, dead in fight,
To better regions took their happy flight.
Long with unconquered souls they bravely stood,
And fearless shed their unavailing blood:
Till, to superior force compelled to yield,
Their lives they quitted in the well-fought field.
This fatal soil has ever been the tomb
Of slaughtered heroes, buried in its womb:
Yet braver bodies did it ne'er sustain,
Nor send more glorious soul the skies to gain.