Poems (Odom)/General Hood's Last Charge
GENERAL HOOD'S LAST CHARGE.[1]
The twilight of life is beginning to fall,Death's shadows are creeping high up on the wall; Eternity's waters are plashingSo close I can hear the wild waves as they roarAnd sullenly break on the surf-beaten shore, Their silver spray over me dashing.
The old camp is fading away from my view;I hear the last stroke of life's beating tattoo,— The sound wears the muffle of sorrow.My campaigns are ended, my battles are o'er,My heroes will follow my lead never more, No roll-call shall break on my morrow.
But now I am fighting them over again;On fields that are gory, 'mid heaps of the slain, The enemy swiftly are flying; The shrieking of shell and the cannon's deep boomAre thundering still at the gate of the tomb, The rattle of grape-shot replying.
But ah! the last enemy conquers to-night,And death is the victor—in vain is the fight When God and his creature have striven;The struggle is over; life's colors are furled—Are lost in the dark of the vanishing world; The bonds of the spirit are riven.
But ere I go down 'neath the conqueror's tread,And lie white and still in the ranks of the dead Through silence forever unbroken,To you, my old heroes, my Texas Brigade,From the dimness of death, from the cold of its shade, One last solemn charge must be spoken:
"My faithful old followers, steady and true,My children are orphans,—I give them to you, A trust for your sacredest keeping.By the shades of the heroes who fought at your side,By the few who have lived, and the many who died, By the brave army silently sleeping,
"By the charges I led, where you followed so true,When the soldiers in gray and the soldiers in blue, And the blood of the bravest was flowing,Be true to this last and this holiest trust,Tho' the heart of your leader has crumbled to dust, And grasses above him are growing."
- ↑ General Hood, of the Confederate Army, left his orphan children to the care and protection of his old Texas Brigade.