* * * * * THE BATTLE. Heavy and solemn, A cloudy column, Thro' the green plain they marching came! Measureless spread, like a table dread, For the wild grim dice of the iron game. The looks are bent on the shaking ground, And the heart beats loud with a knelling sound; Swift by the breasts that must bear the brunt, Gallops the Major along the front-- "Halt!" And fetter'd they stand at the stark command, And the warriors, silent, halt! Proud in the blush of morning glowing, What on the hill-top shines in flowing? "See you the Foeman's banners waving?" "We see the Foeman's banners waving!" Now, God be with you, woman and child, Lustily hark to the music wild-- The mighty trump and the mellow fife, Nerving the limbs to a stouter life; Thrilling they sound with their glorious tone, Thrilling they go, through the marrow and bone. _Brothers, God grant when this life is o'er, In the life to come that we meet once more_! See the smoke how the lightning is cleaving asunder! Hark the guns, peal on peal, how they boom in their thunder! From host to host, with kindling sound, The shouting signal circles round, Ay, shout it forth to life or death-- Freer already breathes the breath! The war is waging, slaughter raging, And heavy through the reeking pall, The iron Death-dice fall! Nearer they close--foes upon foes "Ready!"--From square to square it goes, Down on the knee they sank, And the fire comes sharp from the foremost rank. Many a man to the earth it sent, Many a gap by the balls is rent-- O'er the corpse before springs the hinder-man, That the line may not fail to the fearless van. To the right, to the left, and around and around, Death whirls in its dance on the bloody ground. The sun goes down on the burning fight, And over the host falls the brooding Night. _Brothers, God grant when this life is o'er, In the life to come that we meet once more_! The dead men lie bathed in the weltering blood, And the living are blent in the slippery flood, And the feet, as they reeling and sliding go, Stumble still on the corpses that sleep below. "What, Francis!" "Give Charlotte my last farewell." Wilder the slaughter roars, fierce and fell. "I'll give----Look, comrades, beware--beware How the bullets behind us are whirring there---- I'll give thy Charlotte thy last farewell, Sleep soft! where death's seeds are the thickest sown, Goes the heart which thy silent heart leaves alone." Hitherward--thitherward reels the fight, Darker and darker comes down the night-- _Brothers, God grant when this life is o'er, In the life to come that we meet once more_!