They come beset by riddling hail;
They sway like sedges in a gale;
They fail and win and win and fail;
Their mad assailants rave and reel
And face as men who scorn to feel.
Phantasmal fears
And the flop of the flame,
And the throb of the clock,
And the loosened slate,
And the blind night's drone
Which tiredly the spatial pines intone.
They come beset by riddling hail;
They sway like sedges in a gale;
They fail and win and win and fail;
Their mad assailants rave and reel
And face as men who scorn to feel.
Till faintness follows closing in 
When, faltering headlong down, they spin.
Pale Colonels, Captains, ranksmen lie,
Facing the earth or facing the sky.
They strove to live,
They stretch to die!
Friends, foemen mingle; heap and heap
Hide their hacked bones, earth deep!
Where harmless worms caress and creep
Hide their hacked bones, earth deep.
What man can grieve
What woman weep
Better than waking is to sleep.