Were led by Santa Anna, and were more than five to one; —
They were more than twenty thousand, we, little more than four;
But deadlier fights, we knew, were fought by our ancestors of yore,
When, hand to hand, with axe and bill our fathers clove their way
At Agincourt, and Cressy, and purple Poitiérs.
Our general’s brow was care-worn; his eye leapt like a hound,
Seeking, wherever it rested, the advantage of the ground:
Between us and Saltillo lay a craggy mountain pass,
With sierra on sierra in many a granite mass —
The plain of Buena Vista, where, afterward, we stood