But soon the darkling armies blend,
Promiscuous death around they send,
Foe falls by foe and friend by friend
In mingled heaps o’erthrown:
And many a gallant feat is done,
And many a laurel lost and won,
Unwitness’d and unknown;--
Feats, that achieved in face of day,
Had fired the bard’s enthusiast lay,
And, in some holy aisle, for aye
Had lived in sculptured stone.
Oh, for a blaze from heaven, to light
The wonders of that gloomy fight,
The guerdon to bestow,
Of which the sullen envious night
Bereaves the warrior’s brow!
Furious they strike without a mark,
Save where the sudden sulphurous spark
Illumes some visage grim and dark,
That with the flash is gone!
And, ’midst the conflict, only know,
If chance has sped the fatal blow,
Or by the trodden corse below,
Or by the dying groan.