Trumpets and Trombones.

TRUMPETS AND TROMBONES.

A BAND of martial riders next I hear,
Whose sharp brass voices cut and rend the air.
The shepherd’s tale is mute, and now the ear
Is filled with a wilder clang than it can bear;
Those arrowy trumpet notes so short and bright,
The long-drawn wailing of that loud Trombone,
Tell of the bloody and tumultuous fight,
The march of victory and the dying groan;
O’er the green fields the serried squadrons pour,
Killing and burning like the bolts of heaven;
The sweetest flowers with cannon-smoke and gore
Are all profaned, and Innocence is driven
Forth from her cottages and woody streams,
While over all, red Battle fiercely gleams.