Page:Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.djvu/110

 A gleam!—a volley! And who shall go

Storming the swarmers in jungles dread?

No cannon-ball answers, no proxies are sent—

They rush in the shrapnel's stead.

Plume and sash are vanities now—

Let them deck the pall of the dead;

They go where the shade is, perhaps into Hades,

Where the brave of all times have led.

There's a dust of hurrying feet,

Bitten lips and bated breath,

And drums that challenge to the grave,

And faces fixed, forefeeling death.

What husky huzzahs in the hazy groves—

What flying encounters fell;

Pursuer and pursued like ghosts disappear

In gloomed shade—their end who shall tell?

The crippled, a ragged-barked stick for a crutch,

Limp to some elfin dell—

Hobble from the sight of dead faces—white

As pebbles in a well.

Few burial rites shall be;

No priest with book and band