Sweet was the scene around us,
Sweet was the breeze that found us,
From many a merry revel in blossom-brightened dales;
At our feet were tropic flowers,
And around, the rainbow bowers,
And the thorny-guarded cactus, and the regal purple veils.

Behind, the mountain-passes
Through huge and wooded masses,
The grim sierra's bulwarks, left narrow winding way;
The sea in distance slumbered
With verdurous isles unnumbered,
And many a nook of Eden all bright before us lay.

The palm-trees bended, crooning;
The river glided, swooning,
Exhausted by his journey through the rugged upland soils;
And there beside his borders,
Free Cuba's faithful warders,
We vowed her valleys never should become the Spanlard's spoils.

Above us shone the banner, —
The dazzling island banner, —
That bore in sacred beauty the star of Yara yet.
Three stripes were brightly gleaming,
For each Department streaming, —
A trinity of glory that shall never, never set!

With eager hand, yet steady,
Some poised the rifle ready,
In resolute silence waiting for the deadly signal — " Fire! "
But most were ranged in crescent,
With the sword, which every peasant
Bears, like a worthy offspring of the old Castilian sire.

" Oh, not the hirelings yonder, —
See how they pause and ponder! —
And well they may, degenerate, unworthy sons of Spain!
Theirs 'tis not to inherit
The grand chivalric spirit;
But in the faithful island the Cids revive again.

" " The ever-faithful island!"
Yes, faithful from the highland,
The glorious old sierra, to the ever-flowing sea;
Faithful to Freedom's story,
Faithful to truth and glory,
Faithful, forever faithful, the ocean gem shall be.

" See, steadily advancing,
Yon line of bayonets glancing.
What though they have three thousand and we are only two!
These swords shall overthrow them.
Men of Camaguey, show them
What the freeborn sons of Cuba in her righteous cause can do. "

So spake Quesada proudly;
And the cheer that followed loudly,
The mighty storm of vivas bursting from every soul,
Proved that their hearts were in it;
And for one glorious minute
The whole impassioned army began to surge and roll.

From skirmishers forward scattering
Comes a desultory pattering.
From bush and copse and palm-tree our riflemen reply;
And gaudy coats are dropping,
But the column, never stopping,
Drives swiftly on toward us, like clouds across the sky.

A sudden roar outcrashes,
Three hundred rattling flashes
Stream swiftly from the covert; down goes the glittering steel.
Wounded and dead and dying
In struggling heaps are lying.
How at the sudden havoc the torn battalia reel!

Clustering, half in terror
Seeing their fatal error,
They turn to storm the thicket; but with a mighty yell,
As if the fiend had won them,
Our swordsmen rush upon them
Like a host of raging demons from the very mouth of hell.

The blows fall fast and faster,
The bayonet quits its master,
And quickly surges homeward the sword-blade's desperate thrust.
Another volley sweeping,
And, from the covert leaping,
Marmol and all his rifles dash at the shattered crust.

Back with a wild outcrying
The Spanish vanguard's flying,
Back like Apollyon's cohorts before St. Michael's blade!
Then what a deafening roar!
" Marmol for evermore!
Viva, forever viva! Viva the whole brigade! "

But still their line, deploying,
Maintains a fire annoying,
And yonder in the hollow the cannon pound away,
And shells go screaming o'er us,
Or, plunging down before us,
Scatter their deadly fragments in showers of iron spray.

And many a gallant fellow
Makes the moist earth his pillow,
And many a dismal moaning is heard by copse and tree.
But our line remains unshaken,
And muskets newly taken
Answer their former masters with defiance full and free.

And so, with furtive dashes
And brief occasional clashes,
Where trivial knots of foemen contend for glade or wood,
The line now forward urging,
Now slowly backward surging,
For two good hours we held them at bay beside the flood.

Once more the steel is glancing,
In columns twain advancing,
For, taught by rude disaster, they shun the middle way.
They aim to turn the crescent —
Now, Camagueyan peasant,
Stand firm for all who love you; strikes as the lightnings slay!

The first sweeps up the river
With a cry that makes it quiver.
Three times our fire outcrashes, and thrice their course is checked.
Then charge they, shouting mainly,
And, struggling fierce but vainly,
Our left comes reeling backward, in wild disorder wrecked.

Haste, hasten to the water!
Haste to the field of slaughter!
Haste, or the left is ruined; haste, or they gain our rear!
Then came the order, ringing,
And half the centre springing
Dashed swiftly at the Spaniards with a grand, resistless cheer.

Gods! how our soldiers fought them!
Right well, I deem, they taught them
Macheta's deadly prowess when swung by desperate hands.
Backward and forward tossing,
With glistening weapons crossing,
A motley throng becrimsoned the Verde's shining sands.

Some struggled in the water;
Some dyed the grass with slaughter;
Some stabbed, some struck, some shouted, or yelled, or shrieked, or fired,
Now for a moment severing,
Then furiously endeavoring
To check or crowd the foemen, with a zeal that never tired.

Meanwhile the right was busy
In a strife that made one dizzy
It rested, well protected, on a little steep ravine,
Where a brook went seaward leaping.
The volunteers are sweeping
To turn our flank; but yonder, Marmol is there between.

Swiftly his line extending,
And steadily backward trending,
At every point he meets them, and everywhere repels.
A strife like Satan's revels!
For fiercer far than devils,
With centuries of outrage, each Cuban bosom swells.

But Quesada's face grew pallid,
Though still he strove and rallied,
For he dreaded more than ever the issue of the day.
Reversed was now the crescent,
The wings were retrogrescent,
And on his weakened centre pressed Spain's reserved array.

A score of horse came clattering,
Reeking and foam-bespattering,
And Cespedes among them, his thoughtful face aglow.
" Hold them a little longer!
Hold them, we'll soon be stronger!
Hold them, for Santa Lucia is coming from below! "

Then what a joyous quiver
Thrilled from ravine to river!
From right and left and centre rose one exultant cry:
" Viva Bayamo's coming!
The gallant marquis' coming!
Down with the Spanish hirelings! Let the invaders die! "

Is it Echo's voice replying
From the woods all sombre lying?
No; yonder down the hillside, beyond our distant right,
A thousand men are rushing,
Each patriot cheek is flushing,
Each eye ecstatic dancing, at the glory of the sight.

Some galloping on horses,
Some as the greyhound courses,
They fall with sudden slaughter on the wavering volunteers,
Back on their centre reeling,
With many a wild appealing,
While the battle-cry of Cuba is ringing in their ears.

Over unnumbered corses
Sweep our united forces.
Quesada and the marquis are charging side by side.
A thousand gallants more
Join from the river shore.
Not all the Spanish legions can stem that roaring tide.

The phalanx grim and serried
Of regulars is buried
In the rush, as countless surges a sand-wall overwhelm.
Far from his gun in fear
Flies the pale cannoneer,
And the storm-tost flags are whirling like a ship without a helm.

Far from the coveted mountains
That hide the river fountains,
Down to the distant ocean the boastful foe is borne
(Yet bravely have they striven),
And our vivas rend high heaven
As the blazing star of Yara goes careering grandly on.

Theirs are the pains and dolors,
And ours the guns and colors,
And the arms that dot the valley and strew the scene of strife,
Ours the victor's glory,
And ours the stirring story
That lends a thrill of rapture to the years of peaceful life.

But in many a mountain Aidenn
Some olive-tinted maiden
By the orange-grove is listening for her lover's lone guitar;
And many a wife is gasping,
The wayside plantain grasping,
In eager terror waiting for tidings from the war.

Ah, well, from other fingers
The maid that yonder lingers
May learn to love the music as well as his that died;
And time the grief will mellow,
And soothe the aching pillow,
Of her whose mate is sleeping by the Verde's crimson side.

The dearer is the offering,
The nobler is the proffering,
And all that's worth the winning is won by sacrifice.
The land is ruined that falters,
For Freedom's holy altars
Require a rich oblation for each transcendent prize.

Spurning all hesitation,
The young Minerva nation
Has flung into the conflict treasure and heart and sword.
Liberty's fight, she's fought it;
Liberty's work, she's wrought it;
Still works and strives in darkness without one cheering word.