"With the bands at play and the colours spread
We swarmed up the parapet,
But the sight that silenced our welcome shout
I shall never in life forget.
Four days before had their water gone—
They bad dreaded that the most—
The next their last scant rations went,
And each man looked a ghost,
"As he stood, gaunt-eyed, behind his gun,
Like a crippled stag at bay,
And watched starvation—but not defeat—
Draw nearer every day.
Of all the Fifth, not four-score men
Could in their places stand,
And their white lips told a fearful tale,
As we grasped each bloodless hand.
"The rest in the stupor of famine lay,
Save here and there a few
In death sat rigid against the guns,
Grim sentinels in blue;
And their Col'nel, he could not speak nor stir,
But we saw his proud eye thrill
As he simply glanced at the shot-scarred staff
Where the old flag floated still!
"Now, I hate the tyrants who grind us down,
While the wolf snarls at our door,
And the men who've risen from us—to laugh
At the misery of the poor;
But I tell you, mates, while this weak old hand
I have left the strength to lift,
It will touch my cap to the proudest swell
Who fought in the Dandy Fifth!"
"BAY BILLY."
BY F.H. GASSAWAY.
'Twas the last fight at Fredericksburg—
Perhaps the day you reck—
Our boys, the Twenty-second Maine,
Kept Early's men in check.
Just where Wade Hampton boomed away
The fight went neck and neck.
All day we held the weaker wing,
And held it with a will;
Five several stubborn times we charged
The battery on the hill,
And five times beaten back, re-formed,
And kept our columns still.
At last from out the centre fight
Spurred up a general's aid.
"That battery must silenced be!"
He cried, as past he sped.
Our colonel simply touched his cap,
And then, with measured tread,
To lead the crouching line once more
The grand old fellow came.
No wounded man but raised his head
And strove to gasp his name,
And those who could not speak nor stir
"God blessed him" just the same.