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- 3938
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:58.829Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3830
- text
- The taste in his mouth was sweet at morn;
Little of care he cared about.
And yet of pains and pangs he knew--
In others, maimed by Mosby’s crew.
The Hospital Steward--even he
(Sacred in person as a priest),
And on his coat-sleeve broidered nice
Wore the caduceus, black and green.
No wonder he sat so light on his beast;
This cheery man in suit of price
Not even Mosby dared to slice.
They pass the picket by the pine
And hollow log--a lonesome place;
His horse adroop, and pistol clean;
’Tis cocked--kept leveled toward the wood;
Strained vigilance ages his childish face.
Since midnight has that stripling been
Peering for Mosby through the green.
Splashing they cross the freshet-flood,
And up the muddy bank they strain;
A horse at the spectral white-ash shies--
One of the span of the ambulance,
Black as a hearse. They give the rein:
Silent speed on a scout were wise,
Could cunning baffle Mosby’s spies.
Rumor had come that a band was lodged
In green retreats of hills that peer
By Aldie (famed for the swordless charge[22]).
Much store they’d heaped of captured arms
And, peradventure, pilfered cheer;
For Mosby’s lads oft hearts enlarge
In revelry by some gorge’s marge.
“Don’t let your sabres rattle and ring;
To his oat-bag let each man give heed--
There now, that fellow’s bag’s untied,
Sowing the road with the precious grain.
Your carbines swing at hand--you need!
Look to yourselves, and your nags beside,
Men who after Mosby ride.”
Picked lads and keen went sharp before--
A guard, though scarce against surprise;
And rearmost rode an answering troop,
But flankers none to right or left.
No bugle peals, no pennon flies:
Silent they sweep, and fail would swoop
On Mosby with an Indian whoop.
On, right on through the forest land,
Nor man, nor maid, nor child was seen--
Not even a dog. The air was still;
The blackened hut they turned to see,
And spied charred benches on the green;
A squirrel sprang from the rotting mill
Whence Mosby sallied late, brave blood to spill.
By worn-out fields they cantered on--
Drear fields amid the woodlands wide;
By cross-roads of some olden time,
In which grew groves; by gate-stones down--
Grassed ruins of secluded pride:
A strange lone land, long past the prime,
Fit land for Mosby or for crime.
The brook in the dell they pass. One peers
Between the leaves: “Ay, there’s the place--
There, on the oozy ledge--’twas there
We found the body (Blake’s you know);
Such whirlings, gurglings round the face--
Shot drinking! Well, in war all’s fair--
So Mosby says. The bough--take care!”
Hard by, a chapel. Flower-pot mould
Danked and decayed the shaded roof;
The porch was punk; the clapboards spanned
With ruffled lichens gray or green;
Red coral-moss was not aloof;
And mid dry leaves green dead-man’s-hand
Groped toward that chapel in Mosby-land.
They leave the road and take the wood,
And mark the trace of ridges there--
A wood where once had slept the farm--
A wood where once tobacco grew
Drowsily in the hazy air,
And wrought in all kind things a calm--
Such influence, Mosby! bids disarm.
To ease even yet the place did woo--
To ease which pines unstirring share,
For ease the weary horses sighed:
Halting, and slackening girths, they feed,
Their pipes they light, they loiter there;
Then up, and urging still the Guide,
On, and after Mosby ride.
This Guide in frowzy coat of brown,
And beard of ancient growth and mould,
Bestrode a bony steed and strong,
As suited well with bulk he bore--
A wheezy man with depth of hold
Who jouncing went. A staff he swung--
A wight whom Mosby’s wasp had stung.
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