The shadows are lengthening1 for me. The twilight2 is here. My days of old have vanished, tone and tint3. They have gone glimmering4 through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous5 beauty, watered by tears, and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen vainly, but with thirsty ears, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll. In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle9 of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.
But in the evening of my memory, always I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country. Today marks my final roll call with you, but I want you to know that when I cross the river my last conscious thoughts will be of The Corps10, and The Corps, and The Corps.
相关文章推荐
