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XXVIII.

The lot of those who in the silence wait
Is harder than the fighting soldiers’ fate.
Back to the lonely post two women passed,
With unaccustomed sorrow overcast.
Two sad for sighs, too desolate for tears,
The dark forebodings of long widowed years
In preparation for the awful blow
Hung on the door of hope the sable badge of woe.

XXIX.

Unhappy Muse! for thee no song remains,
Save the sad miserere of the plains.
Yet though defeat, not triumph, ends the tale,
Great victors sometimes are the souls that fail.
All glory lies not in the goals we reach,
But in the lessons which our actions teach.
And he who, conquered, to the end believes
In God and in himself, though vanquished, still achieves.

XXX.

Ah, grand as rash was that last fatal raid
The little group of daring heroes made.
Two hundred and two score intrepid men
Rode out to war; not one came back again.
Like fiends incarnate from the depths of hell
Five thousand foemen rose with deafening yell,
And swept that vale as with a simoon’s breath,
But like the gods of old, each martyr met his death.

XXXI.

Like gods they battled and like gods they died.
Hour following hour that little band defied
The hordes of red men swarming o’er the plain,
Till scarce a score stood upright ‘mid the slain.
Then in the lull of battle, creeping near,
A scout breathed low in Custer’s listening ear:
“Death lies before, dear life remains behind
Mount thy sure-footed steed, and hasten with the wind.”

XXXII.

A second’s silence. Custer dropped his head,
His lips slow moving as when prayers are said–
Two words he breathed–“God and Elizabeth,”
Then shook his long locks in the face of death,
And with a final gesture turned away
To join that fated few who stood at bay.
Ah! deeds like that the Christ in man reveal
Let Fame descend her throne at Custer’s shrine to kneel.

XXXIII.

Too late to rescue, but in time to weep,
His tardy comrades came. As if asleep
He lay, so fair, that even hellish hate
Withheld its hand and dared not mutilate.
By fiends who knew not honor, honored still,
He smiled and slept on that far western hill.
Cast down thy lyre, oh Muse! thy song is done!
Let tears complete the tale of him who failed, yet won.