A shell shoots out of its hood of smoke, and slows mid-air and leaps At our corps that is crossing a field of wheat, and we stagger and fall in heaps; We close the ranks, and they break again, when a dozen more fall dying; And some too hurt to use their guns stand up with the others trying. "Lie down an' give 'em a volley, boys--quick there, every one! "Lie down, you little devils!--Down! It's better to die than run." And huddling under the tender wheat, the living lay down with the dead, And you couldn't have lifted your finger then without touching a piece of lead. "Look up in the sky and see the shells go over a-whiskin' their tails"; "Better not lift yer hand too high or the bullets 'll trim yer nails." Said the captain, "Forward, you who can!" In a jiffy I'm off on my feet An' up to their muzzles a-clubbin' my gun, an' the Yanks have begun a retreat. Said a wounded boy, peering over the grain, "Hurrah! See our banner a-flyin'! "Wish I was there, but I can't get up--I wonder if _I'm_ a-dyin'? "O Jim! did you ever hear of a man that lived that was hit in the head? "Say, Jim! did you ever hear of a man that lived-- My God! Jim's dead!" A mist, like a web that is heavy with prey, is caught in the green o' the fields; It breaks and is parted as if a soul were struggling where it yields; The twilight deepens and hushes all, save the beat beating of distant drums, And over the shuddering deep of the air a wave of silence comes. By lantern light we found the boys where under the wheat they lay As if sleep--soft-fingered, compelling sleep!--had come in the midst of play. The captain said of the bloody charge and the soldiers who fought so well: "The army had to follow the boys if they entered the flames o' hell." PICTURE, SOUND AND SONG The battle roar is ended and the twilight falls again, The bugles have blown, the hosts have flown save they in the dusky grain. And lo! the shaking barley tells where the wounded writhe and roll; With a panting breath at the pass of death the body fights for the soul. Some rise to retreat and they die on their feet in this terrible fight for the soul. And horses urged by the spur of Death are galloping over the grain; Their hoofs are red, their riders are dead, and loose are the stirrup and rein. A ghost in the saddle is riding them down, the spurs of Pain at his heels; They are cut to the bone, they rush and they groan, as a wake in the barley reels: And faces rise with haggard eyes where the wake in the barley reels. The blue and the gray lie face to face and their fingers harrow the loam,