At length before our daring
The Pagans had to yield,
And in their stout enclosure
They sought to find a shield,
And left us, wearied with our toil,
The masters of the field.
Now worn and spent and weary,
Our force was scattered round,
Some seeking for their comrades,
Some seated on the ground,
When sudden fell upon our ears
A single trumpet's sound.
"Up! ready make for storming!"
That speaks [Moscoso] near;
He comes with stainless sabre,
He comes with spotless spear;
But stains of blood and spots of gore
Await his weapons here.
Soon, formed in four divisions,
Around the order goes—
"To front with battle-axes!
No moment for repose.
At signal of an arquebus,
Rain on the gates your blows."
Not long that fearful crashing,
The gates in splinters fall;
And some, though sorely wounded,
Climb o'er the crowded wall:
No rampart's height can keep them back,
No danger can appall.
Then redly rained the carnage—
None asked for quarter there;
Men fought with all the fury
Born of a wild despair;
And shrieks and groans and yells of hate
Were mingled in the air.
Four times they backward beat us,
Four times our force returned;
We quenched in bloody torrents
The fire that in us burned;
We slew who fought, and those who knelt
With stroke of sword we spurned.
And what are these new forces,
With long, black, streaming hair?
They are the singing maidens
Who met us in the square;
And now they spring upon our ranks
Like she-wolves from their lair.
Their sex no shield to save them,
Their youth no weapon stayed;
De Soto with his falchion
A lane amid them made,
And in the skulls of blooming girls
Sank battle-axe and blade.
Forth came a wingèd arrow,
And struck our leader's thigh;
The man who sent it shouted,
And looked to see him die;
The wound but made the tide of rage
Run twice as fierce and high.