Page:Halleck.djvu/53

Rh :There is a woman, widowed, gray, and old,
 * Who tells you where the foot of Battle stepped
 * Upon their day of massacre. She told
 * Its tale, and pointed to the spot, and wept,
 * Whereon her father and five brothers slept
 * Shroudless, the bright-dreamed slumbers of the brave,
 * When all the land a funeral mourning kept.
 * And there, wild laurels planted on the grave

By Nature’s hand, in air their pale-red blossoms wave.


 * Are marks where timeworn battlements have been,
 * And in the tall grass traces linger still
 * Of “arrowy frieze and wedgèd ravelin.”
 * Five hundred of her brave that valley green
 * Trod on the morn in soldier-spirit gay;
 * But twenty lived to tell the noonday scene—
 * And where are now the twenty? Passed away.

Has Death no triumph hours, save on the battle-day?