35. songs of the rebels.
The dead cavalier--Gen. J. E. B. Stuart.
The drums came back muffled, that beating aloud,Went out in the morning all thrill to the fight,
For the hero lies dead in his battle-flag shroud,
And his steed is led groomed without rider to-night.
Then beat the drums muffled, and play the fife low,
And march on the cortege to cadences slow.
Who saw him that morning as gaily he rode
At the front of his troopers, who filed proudly after him,
Though to look on to-night the visage that showed
The pale death relapse, and the eye sunk and dim.
Then toll the bell sadly, solemnly toll,
A hero is passing to glory's last goal.
Come, stand by the corpse, look down on that face,
Mark where the bullet burst its way through,
See where the death-pang left its last trace
As the lead messenger struck, unerring and true.
Then hushed, gather round, let our tears be like rain,
A truer cavalier we shall ne'er see again.
Ah! the story he wrote with the point of his sword,
How it thrilled through the cities, how it stirred up the land;
Who can forget how the hireling horde
Ran blating for mercy when he did command.
At the North though they mock, and rejoice at his fall,
With grief-laden flowers will we cover his pall.
Oh! how like the besom of fate in their rear,
Came the wave of his plume and the flash of his blade,
When, bursting from covert, to his troopers will cheer,
The bugle, it sounded the charge in the raid.
Now his plume is at rest, his sword in its sheath,
And the hand that should grasp it is nerveless in death.
Make his grave where he fought, nigh the field where he fell,
In blossoming Hollywood, under the hill,
In sight of the hearth-stones he defended so well,
That his spirit may be guardian sentinel still,
And there let a finger of marble disclose
The spot where he lies-point the skies where he rose.
