Makes thee brood on War, who dreadest these things?

“Is it but the haunting of the bugles,

Floating memories of the war-time bugles

Blowing over those far fields of childhood,

Pleasant in the foolish ear of childhood,

When the sword-hilt

Seemed but made to shine and hold a jewel?”

Then the inward Voice that gave the mandate,—

Bade me sing of battle,—bade me answer:

Well I know the symbol of the sword-hilt,