A Year's Casualties

Ambrose Bierce 1842 (Meigs County) – 1914 (Chihuahua)



Slain as they lay by the secret, slow,
Pitiless hand of an unseen foe,
Two score thousand old soldiers have crossed
The river to join the loved and lost.
In the space of a year their spirits fled,
Silent and white, to the camp of the dead.

One after one, they fall asleep
And the pension agents awake to weep,
And orphaned statesmen are loud in their wail
As the souls flit by on the evening gale.
O Father of Battles, pray give us release
From the horrors of peace, the horrors of peace!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

28 sec read
381

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBCC DDEEFF
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 485
Words 96
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 6, 6

Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist. more…

All Ambrose Bierce poems | Ambrose Bierce Books

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    "A Year's Casualties" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/1678/a-year's-casualties>.

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