The Reveille

 By Miss Agnes C. Atwater, Ithaca, N.Y.

Fall in ! fall in ! Old comrades come,

With noiseless step and silent drum;

Our eyes across the long years see

When mem’ry sounds the reveille.

 

Across the mists of thirty years

We see the first young volunteers,

We here the music of the band,

The sounds of marching in the land.

 

And through the cheering crowd there slips

A tender thought of trembling lips;

Of clasping hands and tear-wet eyes;

Of hope-filled words and brave good byes.

 

But soldiers grew from raw recruits

Before the rebel’s grim salutes;

And through the battle’s dust and smoke;

With fire and death our purpose spoke.

 

We learned the four year’s lesson well

The voice of bullet, shot and shell;

The prison pang, the hunger vain,

The homesick longing worse than pain.

 

The roll-call’s still increasing list,

Of comrades wounded, killed or missed;

Yet on we marched and watched and fought,

Till slowly came the end we sought.

 

Fall in ! fall in ! Again we here

Brave Custer’s words of praise and cheer:

“No color lost, no missing gun,”

The Union saved, the victory won.

 

Now call the roll of quick and dead,

And listen with uncovered head;

For still our comrades old we see,

When memory sounds the reveille.