For it droops above the dead;
Touch it not-unfold it never;
Let it droop there, furled forever,—
For its people's hopes are fled.

Abram J. Ryan [1839-1888]

DRIVING HOME THE COWS

OUT of the clover and blue-eyed grass,
He turned them into the river-lane;
One after another he let them pass,
Then fastened the meadow-bars again.

Under the willows, and over the hill,
He patiently followed their sober pace;
The merry whistle for once was still,
And something shadowed the sunny face.

Only a boy! and his father had said
He never could let his youngest go:
Two already were lying dead

Under the feet of the trampling foe.

But after the evening work was done,

And the frogs were loud in the meadow-swamp, Over his shoulder he slung his gun,

And stealthily followed the foot-path damp,

Across the clover, and through the wheat,
With resolute heart and purpose grim,

Though cold was the dew on his hurrying feet,
And the blind bat's flitting startled him.

Thrice since then had the lanes been white,
And the orchards sweet with apple-bloom;
And now, when the cows came back at night,
The feeble father drove them home.

For news had come to the lonely farm
That three were lying where two had lain;
And the old man's tremulous, palsied arm
Could never lean on a son's again.

The summer day grew cold and late.

He went for the cows when the work was done; But down the lane, as he opened the gate, He saw them coming, one by one,—

Brindle, Ebony, Speckle, and Bess,

Shaking their horns in the evening wind; Cropping the buttercups out of the grass,But who was it following close behind?

Loosely swung in the idle air

The empty sleeve of army blue;

And worn and pale, from the crisping hair,
Looked out a face that the father knew.

For Southern prisons will sometimes yawn,
And yield their dead unto life again;
And the day that comes with a cloudy dawn
In golden glory at last may wane.

The great tears sprang to their meeting eyes;
For the heart must speak when the lips are dumb;
And under the silent evening skies,

Together they followed the cattle home.

Kate Putnam Osgood [1841

BEFORE SEDAN

[AUGUST 29-SEPTEMBER 1, 1870]

"The dead hand clasped a letter "-Special Correspondence

HERE in this leafy place,

Quiet he lies,

Cold, with his sightless face

Turned to the skies;

'Tis but another dead;

All you can say is said.

Carry his body hence,

Kings must have slaves;

Kings climb to eminence

Over men's graves:

So this man's eye is dim;-
Throw the earth over him.

What was the white you touched,

There, at his side?

Paper his hand had clutched

Tight ere he died;

Message or wish, may be:

Smooth out the folds and see.

Hardly the worst of us

Here could have smiled!

Only the tremulous

Words of a child;—

Prattle, that had for stops
Just a few ruddy drops.

Look. She is sad to miss.
Morning and night,

His-her dead father's-kiss;

Tries to be bright,

Good to mamma, and sweet.
That is all. "Marguerite."

Ah, if beside the dead

Slumbered the pain!

Ah, if the hearts that bled
Slept with the slain!

If the grief died;-But no;

Death will not have it so.

Austin Dobson [1840

CUSTER'S LAST CHARGE

[JUNE 25, 1876]

DEAD! Is it possible? He, the bold rider,
Custer, our hero, the first in the fight,
Charming the bullets of yore to fly wider,

Far from our battle-king's ringlets of light!

Dead, our young chieftain, and dead, all forsaken!
No one to tell us the way of his fall!

Slain in the desert, and never to waken,
Never, not even to victory's call!

Proud for his fame that last day that he met them!
All the night long he had been on their track,
Scorning their traps and the men that had set them,
Wild for a charge that should never give back.
There on the hilltop he halted and saw them.-
Lodges all loosened and ready to fly;

Hurrying scouts with the tidings to awe them,
Told of his coming before he was nigh.

All the wide valley was full of their forces,
Gathered to cover the lodges' retreat!-
Warriors running in haste to their horses,
Thousands of enemies close to his feet!
Down in the valleys the ages had hollowed,
There lay the Sitting Bull's camp for a prey!
Numbers! What recked he? What recked those who

followed

Men who had fought ten to one ere that day?

Out swept the squadrons, the fated three hundred,
Into the battle-line steady and full;

Then down the hillside exultingly thundered,
Into the hordes of the old Sitting Bull!

Wild Ogalallah, Arapahoe, Cheyenne,

Wild Horse's braves, and the rest of their crew, Shrank from that charge like a herd from a lion,— Then closed around, the grim horde of wild Sioux!

Right to their centre he charged, and then facing—
Hark to those yells! and around them, O see!
Over the hilltops the Indians come racing,
Coming as fast as the waves of the sea!

Red was the circle of fire around them;

No hope of victory, no ray of light,

Shot through that terrible black cloud without them, Brooding in death over Custer's last fight.

Then did he blench? Did he die like a craven,
Begging those torturing fiends for his life?
Was there a soldier who carried the Seven

Flinched like a coward or fled from the strife?
No, by the blood of our Custer, no quailing!
There in the midst of the Indians they close,
Hemmed in by thousands, but ever assailing,
Fighting like tigers, all bayed amid foes!

Thicker and thicker the bullets came singing;
Down go the horses and riders and all;
Swiftly the warriors round them were ringing,
Circling like buzzards awaiting their fall.
See the wild steeds of the mountain and prairie,
Savage eyes gleaming from forests of mane;
Quivering lances with pennons so airy,

War-painted warriors charging amain.

Backward, again and again, they were driven,
Shrinking to close with the lost little band;
Never a cap that had worn the bright Seven
Bowed till its wearer was dead on the strand.
Closer and closer the death-circle growing,

Ever the leader's voice, clarion clear,

Rang out his words of encouragement glowing,

"We can but die once, boys,—we'll sell our lives dear!"

Dearly they sold them like Berserkers raging,

Facing the death that encircled them round;
Death's bitter pangs by their vengeance assuaging,
Marking their tracks by their dead on the ground.
Comrades, our children shall yet tell their story,—
Custer's last charge on the old Sitting Bull;
And ages shall swear that the cup of his glory
Needed but that death to render it full.

Frederick Whittaker [1838

THE LAST REDOUBT

[SEPTEMBER, 1877]

KACELYEVO's slope still felt

The cannons' bolts and the rifles' pelt;