But the field-mouse small and busy ant
Heap their hillocks, to hide if they may the woe:
By the bubbling spring lies the rusted canteen,
And the drum which the drummer-boy dying let go.

_Dust to dust, and blood for blood--
Passion and pangs! Has Time
Gone back? or is this the Age
Of the world's great Prime?_

The wagon mired and cannon dragged
Have trenched their scar; the plain
Tramped like the cindery beach of the damned--
A site for the city of Cain.
And stumps of forests for dreary leagues
Like a massacre show. The armies have lain
By fires where gums and balms did burn,
And the seeds of Summer's reign.

_Where are the birds and boys?
Who shall go chestnutting when
October returns? The nuts--
O, long ere they grow again._

They snug their huts with the chapel-pews,
In court-houses stable their steeds--
Kindle their fires with indentures and bonds,
And old Lord Fairfax's parchment deeds;
And Virginian gentlemen's libraries old--
Books which only the scholar heeds--