Each carbine sends its whizzing ball; Dash on beneath the smoking dome; Through level lightnings gallop nearer ! One look to heaven! No thoughts of home: The guidons that we bear are dearer. Charge! Cling! clang! forward all, Heaven help those whose horses fall! They flee before our fierce attack! They fall! they spread in broken surges ! Now, comrades, bear our wounded back, And leave the foeman to his dirges. Wheel! The bugles sound the swift recall ; Home, and good-night! O" CAVALRY SONG. BY ROSSITER W. RAYMOND. UR bugles sound gayly. To horse and away! Then ho! brothers, ho! for the ride or the fight, The hearts of the free will remember us yet, Then mount and away! let the coward delight To be lazy all day and safe all night; Our joy is a charger, flecked with foam, And the earth is our bed and the saddle our home; And whether we fight, etc. See yonder the ranks of the traitorous foe, And bright in the sunshine bayonets glow! Breathe a prayer, but no sigh; think for what you would fight; Then charge! with a will, boys, and God for the right! And whether we fight, etc. We have gathered again the red laurels of war; H THE CAVALRY CHARGE. ARK! 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, 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, Oh, to bid them live, and to make them grand! Hurrah! a new swath through the harvest again! |