Rise! man the wall--our clarion's blast
Now sounds the final reveille;
This dawning morn must be the last
Our fated band shall ever see.
To life, but not to hope, farewell;
Your trumpet's clang, and cannon's peal,
And storming shout, and clash of steel
Is ours, but not our country's knell.
Welcome the Spartan's death--
'Tis no despairing strife--
We fall--we die--but our expiring breath
Is Freedom's breath of life.
"Here on this new Thermopylae
Our monument shall tower on high,
And 'Alamo' hereafter be
On bloodier fields the battle cry."
Thus Travis from the rampart cried.
And when his warriors saw the foe
Like whelming billows move below,
At once each dauntless heart replied:
"Welcome the Spartan's death--
'Tis no despairing strife--
We fall--we die--but our expiring breath
Is Freedom's breath of life!"
They come--like autumn leaves they fall,
Yet hordes on hordes they onward rush;
With gory tramp they mount the wall,
Till numbers the defenders crush.
The last was felled--the fight to gain--
Well may the ruffians quake to tell
How Travis and his hundred fell
Amid a thousand foemen slain.
They died the Spartan's death,
But not in hopeless strife;
Like brothers died--and their expiring breath
Was freedom's breath of life.
Among the many pleasant incidents of our stay in San Antonio was the
meeting with some of the students of the West Texas Military Academy,
of which my young friend the Rev. A. L. Burleson is the rector. They
were splendid young fellows. It was a regret that I could not visit the
school and pay my respects to one who bears the honored name of
Burleson.
To look at those young students was a delight; and to know that the
seed sown at Racine, under De Koven, where the Rev. Mr. Burleson
graduated, was here, in this great Southwest, bearing such good
fruitage, was a delightful memory to bring away from San Antonio.