How he strode his brown steed! How we saw his blade brighten In the one hand still left,—and the reins in his teeth! He laughed like a boy when the holidays heighten, But a soldier's glance shot from his visor beneath. Up came the reserves to the mellay infernal, Asking where to go in,—through the clearing or pine? "Oh, anywhere! Forward! 'Tis all the same, Colonel: You'll find lovely fighting along the whole line!"
Oh, evil the black shroud of night at Chantilly, That hid him from sight of his brave men and tried! Foul, foul sped the bullet that clipped the white lily, The flower of our knighthood, the whole army's pride! Yet we dream that he still,—in that shadowy region, Where the dead form their ranks at the wan drummer's sign,— Rides on, as of old, down the length of his legion, And the word still is Forward! along the whole line.
Edmund Clarence Stedman.
THE RIDE OF COLLINS GRAVES.
AN INCIDENT OF THE FLOOD IN MASSACHUSETTS, ON MAY 16, 1874.
No song of a soldier riding down To the raging fight from Winchester town; No song of a time that shook the earth With the nations' throe at a nation's birth; But the song of a brave man, free from fear As Sheridan's self, or Paul Revere; Who risked what they risked, free from strife, And its promise of glorious pay—his life!
The peaceful valley has waked and stirred, And the answering echoes of life are heard: The dew still clings to the trees and grass, And the early toilers smiling pass, As they glance aside at the white-walled homes, Or up the valley, where merrily comes The brook that sparkles in diamond rills As the sun comes over the Hampshire hills.
What was it, that passed like an ominous breath— Like a shiver of fear, or a touch of death? What was it? The valley is peaceful still, And the leaves are afire on top of the hill. It was not a sound—nor a thing of sense— But a pain, like the pang of the short suspense That thrills the being of those who see At their feet the gulf of Eternity!