| |
| STEADY, boys, steady! | |
| Keep your arms ready, | |
| God only knows whom we may meet here. | |
| Don’t let me be taken; | |
| I ’d rather awaken, | 5 |
| To-morrow, in—no matter where, | |
| Than lie in that foul prison-hole—over there. | |
| Step slowly! | |
| Speak lowly! | |
| These rocks may have life. | 10 |
| Lay me down in this hollow; | |
| We are out of the strife. | |
| By heavens! the foemen may track me in blood, | |
| For this hole in my breast is outpouring a flood. | |
| No! no surgeon for me; he can give me no aid; | 15 |
| The surgeon I want is pickaxe and spade. | |
| What, Morris, a tear? Why, shame on ye, man! | |
| I thought you a hero; but since you began | |
| To whimper and cry like a girl in her teens, | |
| By George! I don’t know what the devil it means! | 20 |
| Well! well! I am, rough; ’t is a very rough school, | |
| This life of a trooper,—but yet I ’m no fool! | |
| I know a brave man, and a friend from a foe; | |
| And, boys, that you love me I certainly know; | |
| But wasn’t it grand | 25 |
| When they came down the hill over sloughing and sand! | |
| But we stood—did we not?—like immovable rock, | |
| Unheeding their balls and repelling their shock. | |
| Did you mind the loud cry | |
| When, as turning to fly, | 30 |
| Our men sprang upon them, determined to die? | |
| O, wasn’t it grand! | |
| |
| God help the poor wretches that fell in that fight; | |
| No time was there given for prayer or for flight; | |
| They fell by the score, in the crash, hand to hand, | 35 |
| And they mingled their blood with the sloughing and sand. | |
| Huzza! | |
| Great Heavens! this bullet-hole gapes like a grave; | |
| A curse on the aim of the traitorous knave! | |
| Is there never a one of ye knows how to pray, | 40 |
| Or speak for a man as his life ebbs away? | |
| Pray! | |
| Pray! | |
| Our Father! our Father!… why don’t ye proceed? | |
| Can’t you see I am dying? Great God, how I bleed! | 45 |
| Ebbing away! | |
| Ebbing away! | |
| The light of day | |
| Is turning to gray. | |
| Pray! | 50 |
| Pray! | |
| Our Father in Heaven,—boys, tell me the rest, | |
| While I stanch the hot blood from this hole in my breast. | |
| There ’s something about the forgiveness of sin— | |
| Put that in! put that in!—and then | 55 |
| I ’ll follow your words and say an amen. | |
| |
| Here, Morris, old fellow, get hold of my hand; | |
| And, Wilson, my comrade—O, wasn’t it grand | |
| When they came down the hill like a thunder-charged cloud! | |
| Where ’s Wilson, my comrade?— Here, stoop down your head; | 60 |
| Can’t you say a short prayer for the dying and dead! | |
| |
| “Christ God, who died for sinners all, | |
| Hear thou this suppliant wanderer’s cry; | |
| Let not e’en this poor sparrow fall | |
| Unheeded by thy gracious eye. | 65 |
| |
| “Throw wide thy gates to let him in, | |
| And take him, pleading, to thine arms; | |
| Forgive, O Lord! his life-long sin, | |
| And quiet all his fierce alarms.” | |
| |
| God bless you, my comrade, for saying that hymn; | 70 |
| It is light to my path when my eye has grown dim. | |
| I am dying—bend down till I touch you once more— | |
| Don’t forget me, old fellow,—God prosper this war! | |
| Confusion to traitors!—keep hold of my hand— | |
| And float the OLD FLAG o’er a prosperous land! | 75 |
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