Oh, we thought to surprise you, as panting and flushed,
From our works to assault you we valiantly rushed:
But you fought like the gods, till we faltered and fled,
And the earth, how it hushed!
Let us bury our dead.
So, we bury our dead—
From the field, from the range and the crash of the gun,
From the kisses of love, from the face of the sun!
Oh, the silence they keep while we dig their last bed!
Lay them in, one by one: