The storm passed over the rest. It was Jackson’s storm, It was his old trick of war, for the last time played. He must have known it. He loosed it and drove it on, Hearing the long yell shake like an Indian cry Through the dense black oaks, the clumps of second-growth pine, And the red flags reel ahead through the underbrush. It was the hour he did not stop to taste, Being himself. He saw it and found it good, But night was falling, the Union centre still held, Another attack would end it. He pressed ahead Through the dusk, pushing Little Sorrel, as if the horse Were iron, and he were iron, and all his men Not men but iron, the stalks of an iron broom Sweeping a dirt floor clean⁠—and yet, as he rode, A canny captain, planning a ruthless chess Skilfully as night fell. The night fell too soon. It is hard to tell your friend from your enemy In such a night. So he rode too far in advance And, turning back toward his lines, unrecognized, Was fired upon in the night, in the stumbling darkness, By his own men. He had ridden such rides before Often enough and taken the chance of them,