And fought till its ravines and sands were purple with our blood.
When the foe reached Aqua Nueva—when they found our army gone,
They pressed in marshaled masses, in solid thousands, on;
And noon beheld that river of human souls, for miles,
Like one of their own torrents, sweep through the wild defiles —
So, conscious of their strength, they came, while we, in mute surprise,
Looked wistfully and earnestly in one another’s eyes.
The foe had wedged us in, when a flag approached our ranks,
While the hovering enemy pressed on whence they might turn our flanks;
’Twas a summons to surrender—a summons unto men