Then the word came and the bugle sang And he was part of the running clang, The rush and the shock and the sabres licking And the fallen horses screaming and kicking. His grey was tired and his arm unsteady And he whirled like a leaf in a shrieking eddy Where every man was fighting his neighbor And there was no room for the tricks of sabre But only a wild and nightmare sickling. His head felt burnt⁠—there was something trickling Into his eyes⁠—then the new charge broke The eddy apart like scattered smoke; The cut on his head half made him blind. If he had a mind, he had lost that mind.

He came to himself in a battered place, Staring at Wainscott Bristol’s face, The dried blood made it a ferret’s mask.