les! there the troop
of Minon wheels;
There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon
at their heels.

"Jesu, pity I how it thickens I now retreat and
now advance!
Bight against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's
charging lance!
Down they go, the brave young riders; horse and
foot together fall;
Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them
ploughs the Northern ball."

Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and
frightful on!
Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost,
and who has won?
Alas! alas! I know not; friend and foe together
fall,
O'er the dying rush the living: pray, my sisters,
for them all!

"Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting. Blessed
Mother, save my brain!
I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from
heaps of slain.
Now they stagger, blind and bleeding; now they
fall, and strive to rise;
Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die
before our eyes!

"O my hearts love! O my dear one! lay thy
poor head on my knee;
Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Canst
thou hear me? canst thou see?
O my husband, brave and gentle! O my Bernal,
look once more
On the blessed cross before thee! Mercy!
all is o'er!"

Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one
down to rest;
Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon
his breast;
Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral
masses said;
To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy
aid.

Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young,
a soldier lay,
Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding
slow his life away;
But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena knelt,
She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-
belt.

With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned
away her head;
With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon
her dead;
But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his
struggling breath of pain,
And she raised the cooling water to his parching
lips again.

Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand
and faintly smiled;
Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch
beside her child?
All his stranger words with meaning her woman's
heart supplied;