Page:Pieces People Ask For.djvu/37

Rh THE MAN WITH THE MUSKET. , pass on from this rage of renown,
 * This ant-hill commotion and strife,

Pass by where the marbles and bronzes look down
 * With their fast-frozen gestures of life,

On, out to the nameless who lie 'neath the gloom
 * Of the pitying cypress and pine;

Your man is the man of the sword and the plume,
 * But the man of the musket is mine.

I knew him! by all that is noble, I knew
 * This commonplace hero I name!

I've camped with him, marched with him, fought with him too,
 * In the swirl of the fierce battle-flame!

Laughed with him, cried with him, taken a part
 * Of his canteen and blanket, and known

That the throb of this chivalrous prairie boy's heart,
 * Was an answering stroke of my own.

I knew him, I tell you! And, also, I knew
 * When he fell on the battle-swept ridge,

That the poor battered body that lay there in blue
 * Was only a plank in the bridge

Over which some should pass to fame
 * That shall shine while the high stars shall shine.

Your hero is known by an echoing name,
 * But the man of the musket is mine.

I knew him! All through him the good and the bad
 * Ran together and equally free;

But I judge as I trust Christ will judge the brave lad,
 * For death made him noble to me.

In the cyclone of war, in the battle's eclipse,
 * Life shook out its lingering sands,

And he died with the names that he loved on his lips,
 * His musket still grasped in his hands.

Up close to the flag my soldier went down,
 * In the salient front of the line:

You may take for your hero the men of renown,
 * But the man of the musket is mine.

H. S. Taylor, in The Century.