III.
No; the blood is dead within our veins—we care not now for life;
Let us die hid in the ditches, far from children and from wife;
Let us die hid in the ditches, far from children and from wife;
We cannot stay and listen to their raving, famished cries—
Bread! Bread! Bread! and none to still their agonies.
We left our infants playing with their dead mother's hand:
We left our maidens maddened by the fever's scorching brand:
Better, maiden, thou were strangled in thy own dark-twisted tresses—
Better, infant, thou wert smothered in thy mother's first caresses.