Last Fall of the Alamo
“I am—
Excuse me, I was—the Alamo.
Ye who have tears to shed,
Shed.
Shades of Crockett, Bowie and the rest
Who in my sacred blood-stained walls were slain!
Shades of the fifty or sixty solitary survivors,
Each of whom alone escaped;
And shades of the dozen or so daughters,
Sisters, cousins and aunts of the Alamo,
Protest!
Against this foul indignity.
Ain’t there enough jobs in the city
That need whitewashing
Without jumping on me?
Did I stand off 5,000 Mexicans in ’36
To be kalsomined and wall-papered
And fixed up with dados and pink mottoes
In ’96?
Why don’t you put bloomers on me at once,
And call me
The New Alamo?—
Tamaleville!
You make me tired.
I can stand a good deal yet,
So don’t have any more chrysanthemum shows
In me.
If you do
I’ll fall on you.
Sabe?”
(Houston Daily Post, Monday morning, April 13, 1896.)