Ah, hills and slopes of Brooklyn! I perceive you are more valuable
than your owners supposed;
In the midst of you stands an encampment very old,
Stands forever the camp of that dead brigade.
CAVALRY CROSSING A FORD.
A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands,
They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun--hark to
the musical clank,
Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop
to drink,
Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture, the
negligent rest on the saddles,
Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the
ford--while
Scarlet and blue and snowy white,
The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.
BIVOUAC ON A MOUNTAIN SIDE.
I see before me now a traveling army halting,
Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of summer,
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places rising
high,
Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes dingily
seen,
The numerous camp-fires scatter'd near and far, some away up on the
mountain,
The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized,
flickering,
And over all the sky--the sky! far, far out of reach, studded,
breaking out, the eternal stars.
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