Page:Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.djvu/60



But others were who wakeful laid

In midnight beds, and early rose,

And, feverish in the foggy snows,

Snatched the damp paper—wife and maid.

The death-list like a river flows

Down the pale sheet,

And there the whelming waters meet.

Ah God! may Time with happy haste

Bring wail and triumph to a waste,

And war be done;

The battle flag-staff fall athwart

The curs'd ravine, and wither; naught

Be left of trench or gun;

The bastion, let it ebb away,

Washed with the river bed; and Day

In vain seek Donelson.