Is this the proud City? the scorner
  Which never would yield the ground? 
Which mocked at the coal-black Angel? 
  The cup of despair goes round. 
Vainly he calls upon Michael
  (The white man’s seraph was he,)
For Michael has fled from his tower
  To the Angel over the sea. 
Who weeps for the woeful City
  Let him weep for our guilty kind;
Who joys at her wild despairing—­
Christ, the Forgiver, convert his mind.

SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK October, 1864

Shoe the steed with silver
  That bore him to the fray,
When he heard the guns at dawning—­
    Miles away;
When he heard them calling, calling—­
    Mount! nor stay: 
    Quick, or all is lost;
    They’ve surprised and stormed the post,
    They push your routed host—­
Gallop! retrieve the day.

House the horse in ermine—­
  For the foam-flake blew
White through the red October;
  He thundered into view;
They cheered him in the looming. 
  Horseman and horse they knew. 
    The turn of the tide began,
    The rally of bugles ran,
    He swung his hat in the van;
The electric hoof-spark flew.

Wreathe the steed and lead him—­
  For the charge he led
Touched and turned the cypress
  Into amaranths for the head
Of Philip, king of riders,
  Who raised them from the dead. 
    The camp (at dawning lost),
    By eve, recovered—­forced,
    Rang with laughter of the host
At belated Early fled.

Shroud the horse in sable—­
  For the mounds they heap! 
There is firing in the Valley,
  And yet no strife they keep;
It is the parting volley,
  It is the pathos deep. 
    There is glory for the brave
    Who lead, and nobly save,
    But no knowledge in the grave
Where the nameless followers sleep.

IN THE PRISON PEN 1864

Listless he eyes the palisades
  And sentries in the glare;
’Tis barren as a pelican-beach
  But his world is ended there.

Nothing to do; and vacant hands
  Bring on the idiot-pain;
He tries to think—­to recollect,
  But the blur is on his brain.

Around him swarm the plaining ghosts
  Like those on Virgil’s shore—­
A wilderness of faces dim,
  And pale ones gashed and hoar.

A smiting sun.  No shed, no tree;
  He totters to his lair—­
A den that sick hands dug in earth
  Ere famine wasted there,

Or, dropping in his place, he swoons,
  Walled in by throngs that press,
Till forth from the throngs they bear
    him dead—­
  Dead in his meagreness.

THE COLLEGE COLONEL

He rides at their head;
  A crutch by his saddle just slants in view,
One slung arm is in splints, you see,
  Yet he guides his strong steed—­how
    coldly too.