Classic Poem

Oh, who will follow old Ben Milam into San Antonio?
Such was the thrilling word we heard in the chill December glow;
Such was the thrilling word we heard, and a ringing, answering cry
Went up from the dun adobe walls to the cloudless Texas sky.

He had won from the reek of a Mexique jail back without map or chart,
With his mother-wit and his hero-grit and his stanch Kentucky heart;
He had trudged by vale and by mountain trail, and by thorn and thirsty plain,
And now, with joy on his grizzled brow, he had come to his own again.

They're the spawn of Hell! we heard him tell; they will knife and lie and cheat
At the board of none of the swarthy horde would I deign to sit at meat;
They hold it naught that I bled and fought when Spain was their ruthless foe;
Oh, who will follow old Ben Milam into San Antonio?

It was four to one, not gun for gun, but never a curse cared we,
Three hundred faithful and fearless men who had sworn to make Texas free.
It was mighty odds, by all the gods, this brute of the Mexique dam,
But it was not much for heroes such as followed old Ben Milam!

With rifle-crack and sabre-hack we drove them back in the street;
From house to house in the red carouse we hastened their flying feet;
And ever that shout kept pealing out with a swift and sure death-blow:
Oh, who will follow old Ben Milam into San Antonio?

Behind the walls from the hurtling balls Cos cowered and swore in his beard,
While we slashed and slew from dawn till dew, and, Bexar, how we cheered!
But ere failed each ruse, and the white of truce on the failing day was thrown,
Our fearless soul had gone to the goal, the Land of the Great Unknown.

Death brought the darksome boon too soon to this truest one of the true,
Or, men of the fated Alamo, Milam had died with you!
So when their names that now are Fame's — the scorners of braggard sham; —
In song be praised, let a rouse be raised for the name of Ben Milam!