How he follow'd with them and tack'd with them three days
     and would not give it up,
How he saved the drifting company at last,
How the lank loose-gown'd women look'd when boated
     from the side of their prepared graves,
How the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, and the
     sharp-lipp'd unshaved men;
All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine,
I am the man, I suffer'd, I was there.

The disdain and calmness of martyrs,
The mother of old, condemn'd for a witch, burnt with dry
     wood, her children gazing on,
The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence,
     blowing, cover'd with sweat,
The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck, the
     murderous buckshot and the bullets,
All these I feel or am.

I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,
Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the
     marksmen,
I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with the
     ooze of my skin,
I fall on the weeds and stones,
The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close,
Taunt my dizzy ears and beat me violently over the head with
     whip-stocks.

Agonies are one of my changes of garments,
I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself
     become the wounded person,
My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.

I am the mash'd fireman with breast-bone broken,
Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,
Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my
     comrades,
I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels,
They have clear'd the beams away, they tenderly life me forth.

I lie in the night air in my red shirt, the pervading hush is for
     my sake,
Painless after all I lie exhausted but not so unhappy,
White and beautiful are the faces around me, the heads are
     bared of their fire-caps,
The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.

Distant and dead resuscitate,
They show as the dial or move as the hands of me, I am the
     clock myself.

I am an old artillerist, I tell of my fort's bombardment,
I am there again.

Again the long roll of the drummers,
Again the attacking cannon, mortars,
Again to my listeing ears the cannon responsive.

I take part, I see and hear the whole,
The cries, curses, roar, the plaudits for well-aim'd shots,
The ambulanza slowly passing trailing its red drip,
Workmen searching after damages, making indispensable
     repairs,
The fall of grenades through the rent roof, the fan-shaped
     explosion,
The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the air.

Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general, he furiously
     waves with his hand,
He gasps through the clot Mind not me — mind
     — the entrenchments.

Now I tell what I knew in Texas in my early youth,
(I tell not the fall of Alamo,
Not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo,
The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo,)
'Tis the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and
     twelve young men.

Retreating they had form'd in a hollow square with their
     baggage for breastworks,
Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy's, nine
     times their number, was the price they took in advance,
Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone,
They treated for an honorable capitulation, receiv'd writing
     and seal, gave up their arms and march'd back prisoners
     of war.

They were the glory of the race of rangers,
Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship,
Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and
     affectionate,
Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters,
Not a single one over thirty years of age.