I hear the bugle sounding a retreat,
They now retire, their victory complete;
But mark the price paid for their brief success;
Horses with blood-stained saddles,—riderless.
I see an army bivouac on the field,
To nature's obdurate demands they yield,
And on the ground, from sheer exhaustion spent,
They lie without protecting roof or tent.
So silently their prostrate forms are spread,
One may not tell the sleeping from the dead.