“Oh spare, ye war-hounds, spare their tender age!
On me, on me,” she cried, “exhaust your rage!”
Then with weak arms, her weeping babes caress’d,
And sighing, hid them in her blood-stain’d vest.
From tent to tent, the impatient warrior flies,
Fear in his heart, and frenzy in his eyes:
Eliza’s name along the camp he calls,
Eliza echoes through the canvas walls;
Quick through the murmuring gloom his footsteps tread,
O’er groaning heaps, the dying and the dead,