Page:Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.djvu/202

194 By worn-out fields they cantered on—

Drear fields amid the woodlands wide;

By cross-roads of some olden time,

In which grew groves; by gate-stones down—

Grassed ruins of secluded pride:

A strange lone land, long past the prime,

Fit land for Mosby or for crime.

The brook in the dell they pass. One peers

Between the leaves: "Ay, there's the place—

There, on the oozy ledge—'twas there

We found the body (Blake's you know);

Such whirlings, gurglings round the face—

Shot drinking! Well, in war all's fair—

So Mosby says. The bough—take care!"

Hard by, a chapel. Flower-pot mould

Danked and decayed the shaded roof;

The porch was punk; the clapboards spanned

With ruffled lichens gray or green;

Red coral-moss was not aloof;

And mid dry leaves green dead-man's-hand

Groped toward that chapel in Mosby-land.