He talks with his staff in front of a tavern now. An officer rides up from the near First Corps. “What are you doing here, sir?” The officer Explains. He, too, has come there to look for shoes. —Fabulous shoes of Gettysburg, dead men’s shoes, Did anyone ever wear you, when it was done, When the men were gone, when the farms were spoiled with the bones, What became of your nails and leather? The swords went home, The swords went into museums and neat glass cases, The swords look well there. They are clean from the war. You wouldn’t put old shoes in a neat glass case, Still stuck with the mud of marching. And yet, a man With a taste for such straws and fables, blown by the wind, Might hide a pair in a labelled case sometime Just to see how the leather looked, set down by the swords.