Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
The Volunteer
By Elbridge Jefferson Cutler (18311870)[Born in Holliston, Mass., 1831. Died at Cambridge, Mass., 1870. War Poems. 1867.]
“A
To go where bugles call and rifles gleam.”
And with the restless thought asleep he fell,
And glided into dream.
Through it a level river slowly drawn:
He moved with a vast crowd, and at its head
Streamed banners like the dawn.
And dissonant cries of triumph and dismay;
Blood trickled down the river’s reedy shore,
And with the dead he lay.
And still, with steady pulse and deepening eye,
“Where bugles call,” he said, “and rifles gleam,
I follow, though I die!”