And there through the passage
Of battle-torn spaces,
From dark lurking-places,
With blood-curdling cry
And their knives held on high,
Rushed Amazon women with wild, painted faces.
Then swung the keen sabres
And flashed the sure rifles
Their message that stifles
The shout in red throats,
While the reckless blue-coats
Laughed on 'mid the fray as men laugh over trifles.
Grim cavalry troopers
Unshorn and unshaven,
And never a craven
In ambuscade caught,
How like demons they fought
Round the knoll on the prairie that marked their last haven.
But the Sioux circled nearer
The shrill war-whoop crying,
And death-hail was flying,
Yet still they fought on
Till the last shot was gone,
And all that remained were the dead and the dying.
A song for their death, and
No black plumes of sorrow,
This recompense borrow,
Like heroes they died
Man to man—side by side;
We lost them to-day, we shall meet them to-morrow.
And on the lone river,
Has faded the seeming
Of bright armor gleaming,
But there by the shore
With the ghosts of no-more
The shades of the dead through the ages lie dreaming.
Ernest McGaffey.
CUSTER'S LAST CHARGE
[June 25, 1876]