And he dwells (like the hunted and harried)
In a swamp where the green frogs dip
But his face is against a City
Which is over a bay by the sea,
And he breathes with a breath that is blastment
And dooms by a far degree.
Though there are memorable lines and stanzas in Battle-Pieces, only one of the poems in the volume has ever been at all noticed: Sheridan at Cedar Creek, beginning:
Shoe the steed with silver
That bore him to the fray,
When he heard the guns at dawning