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?