Camp after camp, like marble square on square;

Street following street, with many a park between;

Bright bayonet-sparkles in the tremulous air;

Far-fading, purple smoke above their sheen;

Green central fields with flags like flowers abloom;

And, all about, close-ordered, populous life:

But here no festering trade, no civic strife,

Only the blue-clad soldiers everywhere,

Waiting to-morrow’s victory or doom,—

Men of the hour, to whom these pictures seem,