Classic Poem

Bugle calls coiling through the rocky valley
have found echoes in the eagles' cries:
an outrage is done on anguish'd men
now men die and death is no deedful glory.

Eleven days this legion forced the ruin'd fields, the
burnt homesteads and empty garths, the broken arches
of bridges: desolation moving like a shadow before them, a
rain of ashes. Endless their anxiety.

marching into a northern darkness: approaching
a narrow defile, the waters falling fearfully
the clotting menace of shadows and all the multiple
instruments of death in ambush against them.

The last of the vanguard sounds his doleful note.
The legion now is lost. None will follow.