The College Colonel

He rides at their head;     A crutch by his saddle just slants in view,     One slung arm is in splints, you see,     Yet he guides his strong steed--how coldly too.     He brings his regiment home--     Not as they filed two years before,     But a remnant half-tattered, and battered, and worn,     Like castaway sailors, who--stunned     By the surf's loud roar,     Their mates dragged back and seen no more--     Again and again breast the surge,     And at last crawl, spent, to shore.     A still rigidity and pale--     An Indian aloofness lones his brow;     He has lived a thousand years     Compressed in battle's pains and prayers,     Marches and watches slow.     There are welcoming shouts, and flags;     Old men off hat to the Boy,     Wreaths from gay balconies fall at his feet,     But to him--there comes alloy.     It is not that a leg is lost,     It is not that an arm is maimed,     It is not that the fever has racked--     Self he has long disclaimed.     But all through the Seven Days' Fight,     And deep in the Wilderness grim,     And in the field-hospital tent,     And Petersburg crater, and dim     Lean brooding in Libby, there came--     Ah heaven!--what truth to him.