Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/46

IN WAR TIME Of these the chronicles yet remain

From Navesink Heights to Freehold Plain.

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The Shrewsbury people in autumn help

Their sandy toplands with marl and kelp,

And their peach and apple orchards fill

The gurgling vats of the cross-road mill.

They tell, as each twirls his tavern-can,

Wonderful tales of that stanch old man,

And they boast, of the draught they have tasted and smelt,

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Were he alive, and at his prime,

In this, our boisterous modern time,

He would surely be, as he could not then,

A stalwart leader of mounted men,—

A ranger, shouting his battle-cry,

Who knew how to fight and dared to die;

And the fame which a county's limit spanned

Might have grown a legend throughout the land.

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He would have scoured the Valley through,

Doing as now our bravest do;

Would have tried rough-riding on the border,

Punishing raider and marauder;

With bearded Ashby crossing swords

As he took the Shenandoah fords;

Giving bold Stuart a bloody chase

Ere he reached again his trysting-place.

Horse and horseman of the foe

The blast of his bugle-charge should know,

And his men should water their steeds, at will,

From the banks of Southern river and rill.

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