They plaster your wounds and patch up your broken knees, And then, just as you know the grip of your rider’s hands And begin to feel at home with his horseman’s tricks, Another rider comes with a different seat, And lunges you at the bitter hurdle again, And it beats you again⁠—and it all begins from the first, The patching of wounds, the freezing in winter camps, The vain mud-marches, the diarrhea, the wastage, The grand reviews, the talk in the newspapers, The sour knowledge that you were wasted again, Not as Napoleons waste for a victory But blindly, unluckily⁠— until at last After long years, at fish-hook Gettysburg, The blade and the millstone meet and the blade holds fast. And, after that, the chunky man from the West, Stranger to you, not one of the men you loved As you loved McClellan, a rider with a hard bit, Takes you and uses you as you could be used, Wasting you grimly but breaking the hurdle down.