What appointments were made—in what heads will reside
The patronage Government has to divide.
Thus the High Mettled Guardsman, ’tis easily seen,
The victim becomes of official routine.
At length ill and weak, working early and late,
Bowed down by disease to a pitiful state;
Expos’d to the wet—a continual drench,
He feebly turns over the mud in the trench.
And now, cold and lifeless, he silently lies
On the soil where he hoped to win victory’s prize: