_“At dawn,” he said, “I bid them all farewell,
To go where bugles blow and rifles gleam.”
And with the waking thought asleep he fell,
And wandered into dream._
_A great hot plain from lake to ocean spread,
Through it a level river slowly drawn:
He moved with a vast crowd, and at its head
Streamed banners like the dawn._
_Then came a blinding flash, a deafening roar,
And dissonant cries of terror and dismay;
Blood trickled down the river’s reedy shore,
And with the dead he lay._
_The morn broke in upon his solemn dream,
And still with steady pulse and deepening eye,
“Where bugles call,” he said, “and rifles gleam,
I follow, though I die.”_