Edmund Clarence Stedman

Kearny at Seven Pines

So that soldierly legend is still on its journey,—
⁠     That story of Kearny who knew not to yield!
'T was the day when with Jameson, fierce Berry, and Birney,
⁠     Against twenty thousand he rallied the field.
Where the red volleys poured, where the clamor rose highest,
     ⁠Where the dead lay in clumps through the dwarf oak and pine,
Where the aim from the thicket was surest and nighest,—
     ⁠No charge like Phil Kearny's along the whole line.

When the battle went ill, and the bravest were solemn,
⁠     Near the dark Seven Pines, where we still held our ground,
He rode down the length of the withering column,
     ⁠And his heart at our war-cry leapt up with a bound;
He snuffed, like his charger, the wind of the powder,—
⁠     His sword waved us on and we answered the sign:
Loud our cheer as we rushed, but his laugh rang the louder,
⁠     "There's the devil's own fun, boys, along the whole line!"

How he strode his brown steed! How we saw his blade brighten
⁠     In the one hand still left,—and the reins in his teeth!
He laughed like a boy when the holidays heighten,
     ⁠But a soldier's glance shot from his visor beneath.
Up came the reserves to the mellay infernal,
⁠     Asking where to go in,—through the clearing or pine?
"O, anywhere! Forward! 'T is all the same, Colonel:
⁠     You'll find lovely fighting along the whole line!"

O, evil the black shroud of night at Chantilly,
⁠     That hid him from sight of his brave men and tried!
Foul, foul sped the bullet that clipped the white lily,
⁠     The flower of our knighthood, the whole army's pride!
Yet we dream that he still,—in that shadowy region
⁠     Where the dead form their ranks at the wan drummer's sign,—
Rides on, as of old, down the length of his legion,
⁠     And the word still is Forward! along the whole line.