Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/77

ALICE OF MONMOUTH Each ran for himself: one and all fled the ground!

Then we goaded them up to their guns, where they cowered,

And the breeze cleared the field where the battle-cloud lowered.

Threescore of them lay, to teach them the way

Van Ghelt and his rangers their compliments pay.

But a plenty, I swear, of our saddles were bare;

Friend and foe, horse and rider, lay sprawled everywhere:

'T was hard hitting, you see, Sir, that gained us the day!

8

"Yes, they too had their say before they fled,

And the loss of our Colonel is worse than all the rest.

One of their captains aimed at him, as he led

The foremost charge—I shot the rascal dead,

But the Colonel fell, with a bullet through his breast.

We lifted him from the mire, when the field was won,

And their captured colors shaded him from the sun

In the farmer's wagon we took for his homeward ride;

But he never said a word, nor opened his eyes,

Till we reached the camp. In yon hospital tent he lies,

And his poor young wife will come to watch by his side.

The surgeon has n't found the bullet, as yet,

But he says it 's a mortal wound. Where will you get

Another such man to lead us, if he dies?"

XIV

1

was the bow at last;

And the barbed and pointed dart,

Keen with stings of the past,

Barbed with a vain remorse,

Clove for itself a course 47