Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1879-09-25
CUSTER'S LAST CHARGE.

Dead ? Is it possible! He the bold rider!
Custer our hero, the first in the fight,
Charming the bullets of yOre to fly wider,
Stunning our battle kings ringlets of light!
Dead! our young ch!eftan, and dead all forsaken
No one to tell us the way of his fall!
Slain in the desert, and never to waken,
Never, not even to vctOry's call!
Comrades, he's gone. but ye need not be grieving
No. May our death be like his when we die!
No regret wasted on words | ain leaving,
Failing like brave men, with face to the sky.
Deaths but journey, the greatest must take it.
Fame Is eternal and better than all;
God though the bowl be- ts fate that must break it
Cory can hallOw the fragments that fall.
Proud for his fame that last day he met them,-
All the night long he had been on their track,
Scornng their traps and the men that had laid them
Wild for charge that should never give back
There on the hilltop, he hated and saw them,
Lodges all lOOsened and ready to fly,
Hurrying scouts, with the tidings to awe them,
Told OF his coming before he was nigh.
All the wide valley was full of their forces,
Gathered to cover the lodges retreat;
Warriors running in haste to their horses
Thousands of enemies close to his feet
Down into the valley the ages had halowed
There lay the Sitting Bulls camp for prey!
Numbers? What rocked he! What rocked those that
Men % who had fought ten to one ere that day?
Out swept the squadrons, the fated three hundred,
Into the battle-ne steady and full;
Then down the hillside exutingly thundered
Into the hOrdes of the old Sitting Bull!
Wild Ogallala, ArapahOe Cheyenne,
Wild Horses braves and the rest Of their crew
Shrank from that charge like herd from lion,
Then closed round the great hell of wild Sioux.
Right to the center he charged and then facing
Hark to those yells! are around them, Oh see!
Over the hill-tops the devils come racing.
Coming as fast as the waves of the sea!
Red was the circle of fire about them;
No hope of victory, no ray of light,
Shot through that terrible black cloud without them;
Brooding in death DER Clusters last fight.
Then did he blanch Did he die like craven
Begging those tOrturing fends for his life?
Was there soldier who carried the Seven
Flinched like coward or fled from the strife?
No. by the blood of our Custer, no Quailing!
There in the midst of the devils they close,
Hemmed in by thousands but ever assailing,
Fighting like tigers all bayed amid foes!
Thicker and thicker the bullets come singing,
Down 60 the horses and riders and all
Swiftly the warriors round them are ringing,
Circling like buZZards awaiting their fall
See the wild steeds OF the mountain and prairie,
Savage eyes cleaning from forests of name,
Quivering lances with pennOns airy
War-painted warriors charging amain.
Backward again and again they were driven,
Shrinking to close W tn the lost little band;
Never cap that had worn the bright Seven,
Bowed till its wearer lay dead on the strand.
Closer and closer the death circle growing,
Ever the leaders voice, clarion clear,
Rang out his words of encouragement glowing:-
1--WE can die but once boys,sELL YOUR LIVES DEAR!"
Dearly they sold them, like Berseker's raging.
Facing the death that encircled them round;
Deaths bitter pangs by their vengeance assuaging,
Marking the track by the dead on the ground.
Comrades our children shall yet tell their story
Clusters last charge on the old Sitting Bull;
And ages shall swear that the cup of his glory
Needed but that death TO render it full.