Night hung on van and rear: we moved in darkness,
And heavily did count our echoed steps:
As men who marched to death!—Osma, thy field
(When the pale moon broke on the battle’s verge)
Seemed as an ocean, where the Moorish turbans
Toss’d like the white sea-foam! Amid that ocean
We were to plunge and—perish!—
For ev’ry lance we couch’d the Moslem host
Drew twenty scimitars—and, when the cry
“God and St. Jago!” burst from our pale lips,