VIII.
There is a woman, widowed, gray, and old,
Who tells you where the foot of Battle stepped
Upon their day of massacre. She told
Its tale, and pointed to the spot, and wept,
Whereon her father and five brothers slept
Shroudless, the bright-dreamed slumbers of the brave,
When all the land a funeral mourning kept.
And there, wild laurels planted on the grave
By Nature’s hand, in air their pale-red blossoms wave.
IX.
And on the margin of yon orchard hill
Are marks where timeworn battlements have been,
And in the tall grass traces linger still
Of “arrowy frieze and wedgèd ravelin.”
Five hundred of her brave that valley green
Trod on the morn in soldier-spirit gay;
But twenty lived to tell the noonday scene—
And where are now the twenty? Passed away.
Has Death no triumph hours, save on the battle-day?
