Page:Poems Jones.djvu/79

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THE BATTLE OF GAINES' HILL. 

JUNE 27, 1862. INSCRIBED TO THE GALLANT PENNSYLVANIA RESERVES.

THE battle's last, long thunders rolled;
The witness-cloud to heaven was swept;
And night, the ghostly seer and old,
Around our blood-drenched borders crept:
    Upon our arms we slept.

We slept: but night, that ancient seer,
Conned o'er us his prophetic lore;
And whispered low in many an ear,
"Thou art, but thou shalt be no more
    When next the cannons roar."

Sleep, that should lift the rugged cross
From staggering souls, but deepened pain,
With conscious sense of coming loss,
That like a wind preceding rain
    Blew cold across the brain.