Do you blanch at their fate?
(Who would hesitate?)
Two hundred and sixty-two
Immortals in blue,
Standing shoulder to shoulder,
Like some granite boulder
You must blast to displace
(Were they of a valiant race?)—
Two hundred and sixty-two,
And never a man to say,
"I rode with Custer that day."
Give the savage his triumph and bluster,
Give the hero to perish with Custer,
To his God and his comrades true.
Closing and closing,
Nearer the redskins creep;
With cunning disposing,
With yell and with whoop
(There are women shall weep!),
They gather and swoop,
They come like a flood,
Maddened with blood,
They shriek, plying the knife
(Was there one begged for his life?),
Where but a moment ago
Stood serried and sternly the foe,
Now fallen, mangled below.
Down the Little Big Horn
(Tramp of the hoof, champ of the bit),
A single steed in the morn,
Comanche, seven times hit,
Comes to the river to drink;
Lists for the sabre's clink,
Lists for the voice of his master
(O glorious disaster!),
Comes, sniffing the air,
Gazing, lifts his head,
But his master lies dead.
(Who but the dead were there?)
But stay, what was the muster?
Two hundred and sixty-two
(Two thousand and more the Sioux!)
Went into the fight with Custer,
Went out of the fight with Custer;
For never a man can say,
"I rode with Custer that day—"
Went out like a taper,
Blown by a sudden vapor,
Went out at a breath,
True to the death!
Francis Brooks.
LITTLE BIG HORN
[June 25, 1876]
Beside the lone river,
That idly lay dreaming,
Flashed sudden the gleaming
Of sabre and gun
In the light of the sun
As over the hillside the soldiers came streaming.
One peal of the bugle
In stillness unbroken
That sounded a token
Of soul-stirring strife,
Savage war to the knife,
Then silence that seemed like defiance unspoken.
But out of an ambush
Came warriors riding,
Swift ponies bestriding,
Shook rattles and shells,
With a discord of yells.
That fired the hearts of their comrades in hiding.
Then fierce on the wigwams
The soldiers descended,
And madly were blended,
The red man and white
In a hand-to-hand fight,
With the Indian village assailed and defended.