Blest souls discharged of life's oppressive weight,
Whose virtue proved your passport to the skies,
You there procured a more propitious fate
When for your faith you bravely fell to rise.

When pious rage diffused through every vein,
On this ungrateful shore you shed your blood;
Each drop you lost was bought with crowds of slain,
Whose vital purple swelled the neighboring flood.

Though crushed by ruins and by odds, you claim
That perfect glory, that immortal fame,
Which like true heroes nobly you pursued
On these you seized, even when of life deprived,
For still your courage, even your lives survived;
And sure 'tis conquest, thus to be subdued.