A Cossack Charge

Cossacks they're coming!

The eager hoofs are drumming,

On glinting steel the autumn sunlight glances.

The distant mass draws nearer,

The surging line shows clearer

An angry, tossing wave of manes and lances.

The torrent opens wider;

As one, move horse and rider,

One heart, one soul, one body, and one breath.

The narrow eyes are laughing,

The wine of war they're quaffing,

The glorious draught of swift, resistless death.

They've met them they're through them !

In writhing heaps they strew them,

Through breaking lines the whipping whirlwind crashes.

Then pauselessly it flies on

Away to the horizon,

And disappears in distant, glinting flashes.