|
"Where is our little drummer?"
His nearest comrades say,
When the dreadful fight is over,
And the smoke has cleared away.
As the rebel corps was scattering,
He urged them to pursue;
So furiously he beat and beat
The rat-tat-too!
He stood no more among them,
For a bullet, as it sped
Had glanced and struck his ankle,
And stretched him with the dead!
He crawled behind a cannon,
And pale and paler grew:
But still the little drummer beat
His rat-tat-too!
They bore him to the surgeon,
A busy man was he:
"A drummer boy—what ails him?"
His comrades answered, "See!"
As they took him from the stretcher,
'A heavy breath he drew,
And his little fingers strove to beat
The rat-tat-too!
The ball had spent its fury:
"A scratch," the surgeon said,
As he wound the snowy bandage
Which the lint was staining red!
"I must leave you now, old fellow."
"O take me back with you,
For I know the men are missing me,
And the rat-tat-too!"
|
