THE CAVALRYMAN'S STORY.

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THE CAVALRYMAN'S STORY.

"TELL again," the grandsire faltered,

Sitting by the farm-house door,

"Tell again the tale unaltered,

How you rode of yore;

It will quicken the slow beating

Of my pulse once more."

And the bronzed and bearded yeoman,

Of the wondrous, daring ride,

Through the country of the foeman

In the bright springtide,

Told with homely grace the story

By the old man's side.

"Good twelve thousand were we, gran'ther;

Every man of us was tough

As the wiry, brown-haired panther,

And our hands were rough

As the clothes you wore when granny

Spun and wove the stuff.

"We had wintered by the river

In the muddy, hutted camps,

Where we had to fight forever

With the twitching cramps

That came prowling round at night-time

Through the fogs and damps.

"But the sunny spring had brought us

Round as right as men could be;

Had you been there you had thought us

Each a gnarled oak-tree;

I could eat of leathery bacon

Then enough for three.

"Dashed we through the Rappahannock,

By brave Stoneman gayly led,

Each man eager for a square knock

On an F. F.'s head:

How our horses stirred the mud up

In the river's bed!

"Oh! the wild, exciting gallop

Round behind the traitors' lair;

Where a foe was left to wallop

Surely we were there,

Terror through the basements sending

Of his rising hair.

"Hissed the delicate-handed ladies,

Shrill between their rage and fear;

But the dark-eyed, half-bleached babies

Grinned from ear to ear,

And their sable, gladdened mothers

Never showed a sneer.

"And the brawny bondmen weary,

Stood up once erect and high,

As upon their midnight dreary

Broke a morning sky:

Guess it was the light of freedom

Flashed as we went by.

"The defenseless and the lowly

Tenderly we left unharmed;

God had made their weakness holy

And their safety charmed;

But we pounced, like sudden falcons,

On the traitors armed.

"How we thundered down the highways

To the frightened villages;

How we scouted all the by-ways

Underneath the trees;

How we stung the rebel minions

Like a swarm of bees!

"Over swamps and dusty ridges

Rushed we to the sacred streams,

And the ponderous wooden bridges,

Tracked for iron teams,

Quick as thought went bursting skyward,

With their clamps and beams.

"Flamed the well-filled army storehouse—

Bacon smoked as ne'er before;

Burst the doors of every warehouse,

Ruined was their store;

Many a rebel missed his rations

For a month and more.

Rumor buzzed along before us,

Threatening death to every man,

And at times its shadow o'er us

Darkened like a ban;

But we rode so swift that

Rumor Hardly kept the van.

Then at dark we camped so wary

Out upon the lonely heights,

With the solemn heavens starry

Holding all our lights;

And the picket's tread was muffled

Through the silent nights.

"Ten long, reckless days of danger

Swept we through the foeman's land,

Every keen-eyed, daring ranger

Bearing in his hand

All of life's uncounted value

Lightly as his brand.