“Come, come, fall back! reform yours ranks—­
  All’s jackstraws here!  Where’s Captain Morn?—­
We’ve parted like boats in a raging tide! 
But stay-the Colonel—­did he charge? 
  And comes he there?  ’Tis streak of dawn;
    Mosby is off, the woods are wide—­
    Hist! there’s a groan—­this crazy ride!”

As they searched for the fallen, the dawn grew chill;
  They lay in the dew:  “Ah! hurt much, Mink? 
And—­yes—­the Colonel!” Dead! but so calm
That death seemed nothing—­even death,
  The thing we deem every thing heart can think;
    Amid wilding roses that shed their balm,
    Careless of Mosby he lay—­in a charm!

The Major took him by the Hand—­
  Into the friendly clasp it bled
(A ball through heart and hand he rued): 
“Good-by” and gazed with humid glance;
  Then in a hollow revery said
    “The weakness thing is lustihood;
    But Mosby—­” and he checked his mood.

“Where’s the advance?—­cut off, by heaven! 
  Come, Surgeon, how with your wounded there”
“The ambulance will carry all”
“Well, get them in; we go to camp. 
  Seven prisoners gone? for the rest have care”
    Then to himself, “This grief is gall;
    That Mosby!—­I’ll cast a silver ball!”

“Ho!” turning—­“Captain Cloud, you mind
  The place where the escort went—­so shady? 
Go search every closet low and high,
And barn, and bin, and hidden bower—­
  Every covert—­find that lady! 
    And yet I may misjudge her—­ay,
    Women (like Mosby) mystify.

“We’ll see.  Ay, Captain, go—­with speed! 
  Surround and search; each living thing
Secure; that done, await us where
We last turned off.  Stay! fire the cage
  If the birds be flown.”  By the cross-road spring
    The bands rejoined; no words; the glare
    Told all.  Had Mosby plotted there?

The weary troop that wended now—­
  Hardly it seemed the same that pricked
Forth to the forest from the camp: 
Foot-sore horses, jaded men;
  Every backbone felt as nicked,
    Each eye dim as a sick-room lamp,
    All faces stamped with Mosby’s stamp.

In order due the Major rode—­
  Chaplain and Surgeon on either hand;
A riderless horse a negro led;
In a wagon the blanketed sleeper went;
  Then the ambulance with the bleeding band;
    And, an emptied oat-bag on each head,
    Went Mosby’s men, and marked the dead.

What gloomed them? what so cast them down,
  And changed the cheer that late they took,
As double-guarded now they rode
Between the files of moody men? 
  Some sudden consciousness they brook,
    Or dread the sequel.  That night’s blood
    Disturbed even Mosby’s brotherhood.

The flagging horses stumbled at roots,
  Floundered in mires, or clinked the stones;
No rider spake except aside;
But the wounded cramped in the ambulance,
  It was horror to hear their groans—­
    Jerked along in the woodland ride,
    While Mosby’s clan their revery hide.