Alas! , the raging battle's done
And morning once again has come
As stillness swathes the bleak horizon o'er
The place where echoes come to strum
Upon the still and silent drum
Heard in the battle just the day before.

Across the scarred and battered fists
Of distant mountains, lies a mist-
A thick, gray cloak of vapor presses still;
Like Death, it rules all Life desist
Where nothing else strives to exist
Upon each brown and lifeless little hill.

It hovers o'er Earth's withered hand-
These thousand miles of scattered sand
That stretch across the desert's fiery face;
It holds the Earth in tired command
Beneath a foul and greedy hand
To smother all of Life within its place.

For there, beneath the fainted gust,
There rests the calm and ageless dust,
Now settled once again into its grave-
Into the place of ancient lusts
Where Time, at last, shall come to rust
The musket and the sword that waxed too brave.

Now Day creeps o'er the battlefield
Where Death unto God's light must yield;