StoryTitle("caps", "The Angels of Buena Vista") ?>
PoemStart() ?>
PagePoem(137, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Speak and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward far away, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or come they near?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy on their souls!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Who is losing? who is winning?—\"Over hill and over plain,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the mountain rain.\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and frightful on!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost and who has won!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Alas! alas! I know not; friend and foe together fall;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "O'er the dying rush the living: pray, my sisters, for them all!", "") ?>
Separator(90, 10, ".") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one down to rest;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon his breast;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral masses said:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy aid.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a soldier lay,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding slow his life away;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena knelt,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-belt.", "") ?>
PagePoem(138, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her head;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her dead;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggled breath of pain,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Look forth once more, Ximena!\" \"Like a cloud before the wind", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood and death behind;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the wounded strive;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Hide your faces, holy angels! Oh, thou Christ of God, forgive!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Sink, O Night, among thy mountains; let thy cool, gray shadows fall;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Dying brothers, fighting demons—drop they curtain over all!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Through the quickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In his sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But the holy Mexic women still their holy task pursued,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint, and lacking food;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Over the weak and suffering brothers with a tender care they hung,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And they dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Not wholly lost, O Father, is this evil world of ours;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Upward through its blood and ashes spring afresh the Eden flowers.", "") ?>
Separator(90, 10, ".") ?>
PoemEnd() ?>