He could see the lurid column
Spread its blazing battle line.


26

Like a troop of charging horsemen
Sweeping on with maddened roar,
Mowing down the grass battalions,
Crackling flames swept all before.
Then the driftwood's rifted breastwork,
Left there by the waters high,
Flashed up in a hissing furnace,
As the red-armed fiends leaped by.
Clinging to the swaying saddle
And the plunging horse's mane,
Billy dashed through falling embers
To the level, open plain.
On the right and left, the head fires
Rushing on at furious pace,
Stretched beside the horse and rider
In the life-and-death-fought race.


27

Here the gale with venomed fury
Met in vortex from afar,
Raising high the flaming pennons
Of the fiery fiends of war.