THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA 255

Look forth once more, Ximena! "Ah! the smoke has

rolled away;

And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the ranks of

gray.

Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troop of Minon wheels;

There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon at their heels.

"Jesu, pity! how it thickens! now retreat and now advance!

Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's charging lance!

Down they go; the brave young riders; horse and foot together fall;

Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them ploughs the Northern ball."

Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and frightful on!

Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost and who has won?

"Alas! alas! I know not; friend and foe together fall, O'er the dying rush the living: pray, my sisters, for them all!

"Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting: Blessed Mother, save my brain!

I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from heaps of slain.

256 THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA

Now they stagger, blind and bleeding; now they fall and strive to rise;

Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die before our eyes!

"O my heart's love! O my dear one! lay thy poor head on my knee:

Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Canst thou hear me? canst thou see?

O my husband, brave and gentle! O my Bernal, look

once more

On the blessed cross before thee! Mercy! mercy! all. is o'er!"

Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one down

to rest;

Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon his

breast;

Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral masses said:

Today, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy aid.

Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a soldier lay,

Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding slow his life away;

But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena knelt,

She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-belt.

THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA 257

With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her head;

With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her

dead;

But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his strugling breath of pain,

And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again.

Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand and faintly smiled;

Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch beside her child?

All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart supplied;

With her kiss upon his forehead, "Mother," muttered he, and died!

"A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee forth, From some gentle sad-eyed mother, weeping, lonely, in the North!"

Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him with her dead,

And turned to soothe the living, and bind the wounds which bled.

Look forth once more, Ximena! Like a cloud before the wind

Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood and death behind;

258 THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA

Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the wounded strive;

Hide your faces, holy angels! O thou Christ of God, forgive!"

Sink, O Night, among thy mountains! let the cool gray shadows fall;

Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over all!

Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled,

In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold.

But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued, Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint and lacking food.

Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care they hung,

And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue.

Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of ours; Upward through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden flowers;

From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their

prayer,

And still their white-winged angels hover dimly in our air! JOHN GREENLeaf Whittier.

THE AWAKENING OF SPRING

[From In Memoriam.]

NOW fades the last long streak of snow,

Now bourgeons every maze of quick

About the flowering squares, and thick By ashen roots the violets blow.

Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue,
And drowned in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail

On winding stream or distant sea;

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives
In yonder greening gleam, and fly
The happy birds, that change their sky
To build and brood; that live their lives

From land to land; and in my breast
Spring wakens, too; and my regret
Becomes an April violet,

And buds and blossoms like the rest.

TENNYSON.