Our lips afraid to question, but he knew what we would ask:
"Not sure," he said; "keep quiet,--once more, I guess, they 'll try it--
Here's damnation to the cut-throats!"--then he handed me his flask,

Saying, "Gal, you're looking shaky; have a drop of old Jamaiky;
I 'm afeard there 'll be more trouble afore the job is done";
So I took one scorching swallow; dreadful faint I felt and hollow,
Standing there from early morning when the firing was begun.

All through those hours of trial I had watched a calm clock dial,
As the hands kept creeping, creeping,--they were creeping round to four,
When the old man said, "They're forming with their bagonets fixed for
storming:
It 's the death-grip that's a coming,--they will try the works once
more."

With brazen trumpets blaring, the flames behind them glaring,
The deadly wall before them, in close array they come;
Still onward, upward toiling, like a dragon's fold uncoiling,--
Like the rattlesnake's shrill warning the reverberating drum.

Over heaps all torn and gory--shall I tell the fearful story,
How they surged above the breastwork, as a sea breaks over a deck;
How, driven, yet scarce defeated, our worn-out men retreated,
With their powder-horns all emptied, like the swimmers from a wreck?

It has all been told and painted; as for me, they say I fainted,
And the wooden-legged old Corporal stumped with me down the stair:
When I woke from dreams affrighted the evening lamps were lighted,--
On the floor a youth was lying; his bleeding breast was bare.