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They'll next see Mosby in a sheep! "Come, come, fall back! reform yours ranks-- All's jackstraws here! Where's Captain Morn?-- We've parted like boats in a raging tide! But stay-the Colonel--did he charge? And comes he there? 'Tis streak of dawn; Mosby is off, the woods are wide-- Hist! there's a groan--this crazy ride!" As they searched for the fallen, the dawn grew chill; They lay in the dew: "Ah! hurt much, Mink? And--yes--the Colonel!" Dead! but so calm That death seemed nothing--even death, The thing we deem every thing heart can think; Amid wilding roses that shed their balm, Careless of Mosby he lay--in a charm! The Major took him by the Hand-- Into the friendly clasp it bled (A ball through heart and hand he rued): "Good-by" and gazed with humid glance; Then in a hollow revery said "The weakness thing is lustihood; But Mosby--" and he checked his mood. "Where's the advance?--cut off, by heaven! Come, Surgeon, how with your wounded there" "The ambulance will carry all" "Well, get them in; we go to camp. Seven prisoners gone? for the rest have care" Then to himself, "This grief is gall; That Mosby!--I'll cast a silver ball!" "Ho!" turning--"Captain Cloud, you mind The place where the escort went--so shady? Go search every closet low and high, And barn, and bin, and hidden bower-- Every covert--find that lady! And yet I may misjudge her--ay, Women (like Mosby) mystify. "We'll see. Ay, Captain, go--with speed! Surround and search; each living thing Secure; that done, await us where We last turned off. Stay! fire the cage If the birds be flown." By the cross-road spring The bands rejoined; no words; the glare Told all. Had Mosby plotted there? The weary troop that wended now-- Hardly it seemed the same that pricked Forth to the forest from the camp: Foot-sore horses, jaded men; Every backbone felt as nicked, Each eye dim as a sick-room lamp, All faces stamped with Mosby's stamp. In order due the Major rode-- Chaplain and Surgeon on either hand; A riderless horse a negro led; In a wagon the blanketed sleeper went; Then the ambulance with the bleeding band; And, an emptied oat-bag on each head, Went Mosby's men, and marked the dead. What gloomed them? what so cast them down, And changed the cheer that late they took, As double-guarded now they rode Between the files of moody men?
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