Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1888-07-09
Clusters 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 atte-king's ringlets of light!
Dead young chieftain, and dead all forsaken! !
No to tell the way of his fall
Slain in the desert, and never to waken,
Never. not even to victory's call!
Comrades, he's gone; but ye need not be grieying
No, may my death be like his when die!
No regrets wasted on worlds am leaving,
Falling with brave men, and face to the sky.
Deaths but journey, the greatest must take it;
Fame is eternal, and better than all;
Gold though the bowl be, It's fate that must break
Glory can halow the fragments that fall.
Proud for his fame that last day that he met themi
All the night long he had been on their track,
Scorning their traps and the that had set them,
Went for charge that should never give back.
There the hilltop he halted and them
Lodges all loosened and ready to fly;
Hurrying scouts with the tidings to awe them,
Told of his coming before he 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 feetl
Down in the valleys the ages had hallowed,
There lay the Sitting BULBS camp for prey
Numbers! What rocked he? What rocked those
who followed?
Men who had fought ten to that day.
Out swept the squadrons the fated three hundred,
Into the battle-line steady and full;
Then down the hillside exultingly thundered
Into the hordes of Old Sitting Bull
Wild Ogalallah, Arapahoe, Cheyenne,
Wild Horses braves, and the rest of their crew,
Then closed around the great hell of Wild Sioux.
Right to their center he charged, and then, facing
Hark to those yells? and around them, oh, see!
Over the hill-tops the devils come racing,
Coming as fast as the of the sea!
Red was the circle of fire about them;
No hope of victory, ray of light.
Shot through that terrible black cloud withou
them,
Broodng in death over Clusters last fight.
THEN DID HE BLENCH? Did he die like a craven,
Begging those torturng fends for his life?
Was there soldier who carried the Seven
Flnched like a coward fled from the strife?
No. by the blood of our Custer, quailingi
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 came singing;
Down by the horses and riders and all;
Swiftly the warriors round them were ringing,
Circling like buzzards awaiting their fall.
See the wild seeds of the mountain and prairie,
Savage eyes cleaning from forests of name;
Quiyering lances with pennons so airy;
War-painted warriors charging amain.
Backward again and again were they driven,
Shrinking to close with the lost little band;
Never cap that had worn the bright Seven
Bowed till it's wearer was dead ON the strand.
Closer and closer the death-circle growing,
Even the leaders voice, arion-cear,
Rang out his words of encouragement glowing,
eve can but die once, boys, but SELL YOUR LIVES
DEAR!''
Dearly they sold them, like Beserkers raging,
Facing the death that encircled them round;
Deaths bitter pangs by their vengeance assuaging,
Marking their tracks by their 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 death to render it full.
Frederick Whitaker.