To be the colonel of their regiment.
They did my bidding. How could I condemn!
They honored me and I respected them;
And yet, these favorites of my command
Had not one hour before applied the brand
Which was transforming with its wand of fire
My father's house into—his funeral pyre.
That they had met resistance, I could see,
For wounded men, in number two or three,
Were by their comrades carted in advance,