Classic Poem

I

The battle sprang through dingy dawn,
A stealthy battle shod with lawn.
It scared the morning with its leap,
A tiger battle slaying sleep.
One aster pierced the reddening east
And lit the monster to his feast.
From lofty heights that faced our camp
He crept on paws of velvet wiles
Down torrent gulches green and damp,
Up wooded slopes and gray defiles,
Till, stealing round our leftward wing,
He crouched and made his fearful spring.

II

My foot was on the stirrup plate,
My hand was on the saddle bow;
I leaped astride and spurred agate
Through tangled paths to spy the foe.
But vainly might I lean and gaze;
The lanskip showed no living shape
I saw but woodlands draped in haze;
One foreland groping like a cape
Through pallid gulfs; beyond, a pall
Of tiding mists; and that was all
But still afar I heard the yell
Of men who conquered, men who fell.

III

Then presently a phantom grove
Disparted wide its filmy aisles;
And through them, half discovered, drove
A drifting swarm of broken files,
Accoutred as they sprang from sleep;
Half vestured; herding close, like sheep
In terror; glancing back amazed,
And croaking low, as creatures dazed
By some incredible mischance,
A thrust of magic's fated lance.
In vain were rally calls. They stared
Unanswering, and ever fared
To rearward, stolidly as hosts
Of brutes, and helplessly as ghosts.
So disappeared our shattered van,
And so the daylong fight began,
While downward drave that lurid star
(Red Thor menacing from his car),
And slowly clomb in rosy lawn
The unavailing peace of dawn.

IV

Now silence fell — a moment's grace —
An anxious, fearful breathing space —
Like that between two evil dreams,
Two combing waves, two levin gleams, —
The while we swiftly altered form,
Battalions wheeling, swarm by swarm,
The ranks a-shake and intertwined,
The very chieftains groping blind
To meet the coming of a foe
Whose striking-place we could not know, —
A panther-footed foe whose claws
Crept daintily through morning's gauze.

V

Then battle's second billow broke,
With tongues of fire and spouting smoke,
With whirring grape and howling shell,
With yelping, piercing yell on yell.
The cannon-vapor folded high,
The spiteful bullet speeded by,
While back we drifted, ever back,
A bleeding, rifted, reeling wrack,
The field with mangled men bestrown,
With fallen steeds, guns overthrown,
And foul with sprinklings, trails and pools
Of blood, as 'twere a land of ghouls.

VI

Till noon the hurrying foe prevailed,
Nor any stroke of ours availed
But then! O what a change there was!
He came! the Roland of our cause!
He came! we needed but his glance
To halt, to rally, and advance,
To strike as 'twere a dying blow,
And see the day all laureled go.
O monstrous joy, akin to madness!
O cruel joy, the victor's gladness!
His dearest comrade falls anear;
He rushes on without a tear
He leaps along the roaring field
And laughs to see the foemen yield.
He faces death's demoniac jaws
And rends the air with gay hurrahs
No other joy that earth may give,
No other moment man may live,
Outshines the radiant moment whiles
Red victory crowns the weary files.