The National tribune., 1903-06-04
cusfKR.s LAST oHARaH.

VOD4&k8 4ABS OaA60B.
Dead! Il It possible? He, the bold rider.
Custer, our hero, the first in the fight,
Charming the bullets Of yore to fly wider,
Far from our battle kings ringlets Of
light;
Dead. our young chieftain, and dead, all
forsaken,
No one to tell us the way Of his fall;
Slain on the desert, and never to waken,
Never, not even to victory's call.
Proud for his fame that last day that he
met them,
All night he had been on their track,
Scorning their traps and the men that had
set them,
Wild for a charge that should never give
There on the hilltop he halted and saw
them,
Lodges all loosened and ready to fly
HurryinS scouts, with 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 in the valleys the ages had followed,
There lay the Sitting Bulls camp for q
prey; 4-- -.
Numbers? What recked he? What rocked
those who followed
Men who had fought ten to one ere that
day?
Out swept the squadrons, the fated three
hundred,
Into the battle line steady and full;
Then down the hillside eXultingly thGn-
dered
Into the hords of the Old Sitting Bull;
Wild Ogalallah, Arapahoe, Cheyenne,
Wild horses, braves, and the rest of
their crew,
Shrunk from that charge like a herd
from a lion
Then closed round the grim hord of wild
Sioux.
Right to their center he charged, and then
facing
Hark to those yells! and around them,
o see;
Over the hilltops the Indians 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 over Clusters last
fight.
Then did he blench? Did he die like a
craven,
Begging those torturing fends for lis
life?
Was there soldier who carried the seven
Finch like coward or fled from the
strife?
No, by the blood of our Custer, no quail
ing;
There in the midst of the Indians they
close
Hemmed in by thousands, but ever assail-
ing,
Thicker and thicker the bullets came sing
ing,
Down go the horses and rider and all;
Swiftly the warriors round them were
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 so airy,
War-painted warriors charging amain.
Backward again and again they were
driven,
Shrinking to close with the lost little
band;
Never a cap that had worn the bright
seven
Bowed till its wearer was dead on the
strand.
Closer and closer the death circle growing,
Ever the leaders voice, clarion-clear,
Rang out his words of encoura cement
glowing:
I'VE can but die once, boys; Wen sell
lives DEAR
Dearly they sold them, like Berserkers
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 own children shall yet tell their
story
Clusters last charge on the Old Sitting
Bull.
And ages shall swear that the cup of his
glory
Needs but that death to render it full.