| SO that soldierly legend is still on its journey,— | |
| That story of Kearny who knew not to yield! | |
| 'T was the day when with Jameson, fierce Berry, and Birney, | |
| Against twenty thousand he rallied the field. | |
| Where the red volleys poured, where the clamor rose highest, | 5 |
| Where the dead lay in clumps through the dwarf oak and pine, | |
| Where the aim from the thicket was surest and nighest,— | |
| No charge like Phil Kearny's along the whole line. | |
| |
| When the battle went ill, and the bravest were solemn, | |
| Near the dark Seven Pines, where we still held our ground, | 10 |
| He rode down the length of the withering column, | |
| And his heart at our war-cry leapt up with a bound; | |
| He snuffed, like his charger, the wind of the powder,— | |
| His sword waved us on and we answered the sign: | |
| Loud our cheer as we rushed, but his laugh rang the louder, | 15 |
| "There 's the devil's own fun, boys, along the whole line!" | |
| |
| How he strode his brown steed! How we saw his blade brighten | |
| In the one hand still left,—and the reins in his teeth! | |
| He laughed like a boy when the holidays heighten, | |
| But a soldier's glance shot from his visor beneath. | 20 |
| Up came the reserves to the mellay infernal, | |
| Asking where to go in,—through the clearing or pine? | |
| "O, anywhere! Forward! 'T is all the same, Colonel: | |
| You 'll find lovely fighting along the whole line!" | |
| |
| O, evil the black shroud of night at Chantilly, | 25 |
| That hid him from sight of his brave men and tried! | |
| Foul, foul sped the bullet that clipped the white lily, | |
| The flower of our knighthood, the whole army's pride! | |
| Yet we dream that he still,—in that shadowy region | |
| Where the dead form their ranks at the wan drummer's sign,— | 30 |
| Rides on, as of old, down the length of his legion, | |
| And the word still is Forward! along the whole line. | |
