They flee before our fierce attack! They fall! they spread in broken surges! Now, comrades, bear our wounded back, And leave the foeman to his dirges. Wheel! The bugles sound the swift recall; Cling! clang! backward all! Home, and good-night! [Illustration] [Illustration] CAVALRY SONG. BY ROSSITER W. RAYMOND. Our bugles sound gayly. To horse and away! And over the mountains breaks the day; Then ho! brothers, ho! for the ride or the fight, There are deeds to be done ere we slumber to-night! And whether we fight or whether we fall By sabre-stroke or rifle-ball, The hearts of the free will remember us yet, And our country, our country will never forget! Then mount and away! let the coward delight To be lazy all day and safe all night; Our joy is a charger, flecked with foam, And the earth is our bed and the saddle our home; And whether we fight, etc. See yonder the ranks of the traitorous foe, And bright in the sunshine bayonets glow! Breathe a prayer, but no sigh; think for what you would fight; Then charge! with a will, boys, and God for the right! And whether we fight, etc. We have gathered again the red laurels of war; We have followed the traitors fast and far; But some who rose gayly this morn with the sun Lie bleeding and pale on the field they have won! But whether we fight, etc. [Illustration] [Illustration] THE CAVALRY CHARGE. BY BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR. Hark! the rattling roll of the musketeers, And the ruffled drums, and the rallying cheers, And the rifles burn with a keen desire Like the crackling whips of a hemlock fire, And the singing shot and the shrieking shell And the splintered fire on the shattered hell, And the great white breaths of the cannon smoke As the growling guns by batteries spoke; And the ragged gaps in the walls of blue Where the iron surge rolled heavily through, That the Colonel builds with a breath again As he cleaves the din with his “_Close up, men!_” And the groan torn out from the blackened lips, And the prayer doled slow with the crimsoned drips, And the beaming look in the dying eye As under the cloud the stars go by, “_But his soul marched on!_” the Captain said, For the Boy in Blue can never be dead!