Then the _Armstrong_, looking seaward, saw the mighty seventy-four, With her triple tier of cannon, drawing slowly to the shore. And the dauntless captain said: “Take our wounded and our dead, Bear them tenderly to land, for the _Armstrong’s_ days are o’er; But no foe shall tread her deck, and no flag above it wave-- To the ship that saved our honor we will give a shipman’s grave.” So they did as he commanded, and they bore their mates to land With the figurehead of Armstrong and the good sword in his hand. Then they turned the Long Tom downward, and they pierced her oaken side, And they cheered her, and they blessed her, and they sunk her in the tide. Tell the story to your sons, When the haughty stranger boasts Of his mighty ships and guns And the muster of his hosts, How the word of God was witnessed in the gallant days of yore When the twenty fled from one ere the rising of the sun, In the harbor of Fayal the Azore! JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE. (By special permission of the author, and of Houghton, Mifflin and Company.) 13 THE MEN OF THE ALAMO To Houston at Gonzales town, ride, Ranger, for your life, Nor stop to say good-by to-day to home, or child, or wife; But pass the word from ranch to ranch, to every Texan sword, That fifty hundred Mexicans have crossed the Nueces ford, With Castrillon and perjured Cos, Sesmá and Almontê, And Santa Anna ravenous for vengeance and for prey! They smite the land with fire and sword; the grass shall never grow Where northward sweeps that locust horde on San Antonio! Now who will bar the foeman’s path, to gain a breathing space, Till Houston and his scattered men shall meet him face to face? Who holds his life as less than naught when home and honor call, And counts the guerdon full and fair for liberty to fall? Oh, who but Barrett Travis, the bravest of them all! With seven score of riflemen to play the rancher’s game, And feed a counter-fire to halt the sweeping prairie flame; For Bowie of the broken blade is there to cheer them on, With Evans of Concepcion, who conquered Castrillon, And o’er their heads the Lone Star flag defiant floats on high, And no man thinks of yielding, and no man fears to die.