Starving army, Who, after your best was spent and your Spring lay dead, Yet held the intolerable lines of Petersburg With deadly courage. You too are a legend now And the legend has made your fame and has dimmed that fame, —The victor strikes and the beaten man goes down But the years pass and the legend covers them both, The beaten cause turns into the magic cause, The victor has his victory for his pains⁠— So with you⁠—and the legend has made a stainless host Out of the dusty columns of footsore men Who found life sweet and didn’t want to be killed, Grumbled at officers, grumbled at Governments. That stainless host you were not. You had your cowards, Your bullies, your fakers, your sneaks, your savages. You got tired of marching. You cursed the cold and the rain. You cursed the war and the food⁠—and went on till the end. And yet, there was something in you that matched your fable.