Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.

Under his spurning feet, the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,
And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind,

And the steed, like a barque fed with furnace ire,
Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire.
But lo! he is nearing his heart's desire;

He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.

The first that the General saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops;
What was done? what to do?-a glance told him

both;

Then, striking his spurs, with a terrible oath,

He dashed down the line, 'mid a storm of huzzas, And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because

The sight of the master compelled it to pause.
With foam and with dust the black charger was gray;
By the flash of his eye, and his red nostril's play,
He seemed to the whole great army to say:
"I have brought you Sheridan all the way
From Winchester down to save the day!"

Hurrah, hurrah for Sheridan !

Hurrah, hurrah for horse and man!
And when their statues are placed on high,
Under the dome of the Union sky,-
The American soldiers' Temple of Fame,-
There with the glorious General's name
Be it said in letters both bold and bright:
"Here is the steed that saved the day
By carrying Sheridan into the fight,
From Winchester,-twenty miles away!"

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

THE CATALRY CHARGE.

WITH bray of the trumpet
And roll of the firm
And keen ring off bogie,

The cavalry come.

Sharp clank the steel scabbards,
The bride-chains ring.

And foam from red nostrils

The wild chargers fing.

Tramp! tramp! o'er the greensward
That quivers below,
Scarce held by the curb-bit
The fierce horses go!

And the grim-visaged colonel,
With ear-rending shout,
Peals forth to the squadrons

The order,-" Trot out !”

One hand on the sabre,
And one on the rein,
The troopers move forward
In line on the plain.

As rings the word, “Gallop!”
The steel scabbards clank,
And each rowel is pressed
To a horse's hot flank :

And swift is their rush

As the wild torrent's flow, When it pours from the crag On the valley below.

"Charge!" thunders the leader:
Like shaft from the bow

Each mad horse is hurled
On the wavering foe.
A thousand bright sabres
Are gleaming in air:
A thousand dark horses

Are dashed on the square.

Resistless and reckless
Of aught may betide,
Like demons, not mortals,
The wild troopers ride.
Cut right! and cut left!-
For the parry who needs?
The bayonets shiver

Like wind-scattered reeds.

Vain—vain the red volley

That bursts from the square,— The random-shot bullets

Are wasted in air.
Triumphant, remorseless,
Unerring as death,-
No sabre that's stainless
Returns to its sheath.

The wounds that are dealt
By that murderous steel
Will never yield case

For the surgeon to heal.
Hurrah! they are broken—
Hurrah! boys, they fly!
None linger save those
Who but linger to die.

Rein up your hot horses

And call in your men,—

The trumpet sounds “Rally
To colors" again.

Some saddles are empty,
Some comrades are slain,

And some noble horses

Lie stark on the plain;

But war's a chance game, boys,

And weeping is vain.

FRANCIS A. Durivage.

THE CAVALRY CHARGE.

HARK! the rattling roll of the musketeers,
And the ruffled drums, and the rallying cheers,
And the rifles burn with a keen desire

Like the crackling whips of a hemlock fire,
And the singing shot and the shrieking shell
And the splintered fire of the shattered hell,
And the great white breaths of the cannon smoke
As the growling guns by batteries spoke;
And the ragged gaps in the walls of blue
Where the iron surge rolled heavily through,
That the Colonel builds with a breath again
As he cleaves the din with his "Close up, men!"
And the groan torn out from the blackened lips,
And the prayer doled slow with the crimsoned drips,
And the beaming look in the dying eye

As under the cloud the Stars go by,

"But his soul marched on !" the Captain said, For the Boy in Blue can never be dead!

And the troopers sit in their saddles all

Like statues carved in an ancient hall,

And they watch the whirl from their breathless ranks,

And their spurs are close to the horses' flanks,
And the fingers work of the sabre hand-
Oh, to bid them live, and to make them grand!
And the bugle sounds to the charge at last,
And away they plunge, and the front is passed!
And the jackets blue grow red as they ride,
And the scabbards too, that clank by their side,
And the dead soldiers deaden the strokes iron-shod
As they gallop right on o'er the plashy red sod-
Right into the cloud all spectral and dim,
Right up to the guns black-throated and grim,
Right down on the hedges bordered with steel,
Right through the dense columns,-then "Right
about wheel!"