But when the gray of morning made twilight in the east,
Like shadows, from the prairie arose both man and beast;
And the soldiers stretched their arms, and the steeds with neigh and stamp,
With the rattling rolling reveillé put motion in the camp;
And the sunrise-gun boomed loudly, when, as its sound declined,
A dull, funereal response rolled heavily down the wind.
The soldiers paused and listened, each with questions in his eyes,
As round and red the tropic sun walked, Mars-like, up the skies; —
It was no echo; never yet made echo sound like that,
For echo lives in the mountain glen, and not on the prairie flat: