Miles Keogh's Horse.

On the bluff of the Little Big-Horn,         At the close of a woeful day,     Custer and his Three Hundred         In death and silence lay.     Three Hundred to Three Thousand!         They had bravely fought and bled;     For such is the will of Congress         When the White man meets the Red.     The White men are ten millions,         The thriftiest under the sun;     The Reds are fifty thousand,         And warriors every one.     So Custer and all his fighting-men         Lay under the evening skies,     Staring up at the tranquil heaven         With wide, accusing eyes.     And of all that stood at noonday         In that fiery scorpion ring,     Miles Keogh's horse at evening         Was the only living thing.     Alone from that field of slaughter,         Where lay the three hundred slain,     The horse Comanche wandered,         With Keogh's blood on his mane.     And Sturgis issued this order,         Which future times shall read,     While the love and honour of comrades         Are the soul of the soldiers creed. He said -     Let the horse Comanche         Henceforth till he shall die,     Be kindly cherished and cared for         By the Seventh Cavalry.     He shall do no labour; he never shall know         The touch of spur or rein;     Nor shall his back be ever crossed         By living rider again.     And at regimental formation         Of the Seventh Cavalry,     Comanche draped in mourning and led         By a trooper of Company I,     Shall parade with the Regiment! Thus it was         Commanded and thus done,     By order of General Sturgis, signed         By Adjutant Garlington.     Even as the sword of Custer,         In his disastrous fall,     Flashed out a blaze that charmed the world         And glorified his pall,     This order, issued amid the gloom         That shrouds our army's name,     When all foul beasts are free to rend         And tear its honest fame,     Shall prove to a callous people         That the sense of a soldier's worth,     That the love of comrades, the honour of arms,         Have not yet perished from earth.