POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL
PLACIDE BOSSIER
Ah, friend! in the tender College time
No evil deed could stain thee,
And now ’mid the combat’s iron chime,
In purity they’ve slain thee.
Sans peur et sans reproche to live,
Sans peur the foe defying—
Sans peur et sans reproche we give
Thy epitaph when dying.
When the Southern bullet sang the knell
Of the butchering invader,
Then—then triumphantly he fell,
Our spotless young Crusader;
With the loud hurrah and the dauntless tramp
Of the charging Creole yoemen,
He fell where the Cherubim encamp,
With his face to the flying foemen.
The blood moon guides its torch of night
Through the smoke envolumed valleys,
And the hillocks tell where the reddest fight
Shook the quick, convulsive vollies;
In the foremost phalanx he shall rest
His head in the dust declining,
The rifle shielding the soldier breast—
The cross on the saint-heart shining!
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