The battle

They come beset by riddling hail;

They sway like sedges in a gale;

They fail and win and win and fail;

Their mad assailants rave and reel

And face as men who scorn to feel.

Phantasmal fears

And the flop of the flame,

And the throb of the clock,

And the loosened slate,

And the blind night's drone

Which tiredly the spatial pines intone.

They come beset by riddling hail;

They sway like sedges in a gale;

They fail and win and win and fail;

Their mad assailants rave and reel

And face as men who scorn to feel.

Till faintness follows closing in

When, faltering headlong down, they spin.

Pale Colonels, Captains, ranksmen lie,

Facing the earth or facing the sky.

They strove to live,

They stretch to die!

Friends, foemen mingle; heap and heap

Hide their hacked bones, earth deep!

Where harmless worms caress and creep

Hide their hacked bones, earth deep.

What man can grieve

What woman weep

Better than waking is to sleep.