A DANCE IN SLOW TRIPLE TIME

As the train pulled out Wilder Dwight
Saw his friend Charles on the platform
And, to amuse him, did a few steps
Of a saraband which Charles,
One of the Adams boys, echoed.

On horseback, in the Antietam mist,
Dwight began a letter to his mother
Which he finished as he lay dying.

(The bloodstained letter survives;

The handwriting worsens near the end.)

Charles Francis Adams lived to be 80,
Fought in the war, became a brevet general
And wrote  books on railroad administration.
Life taught me much on administering railroads

But I have never danced a saraband. Still,
No Confederate soldier shot me at Antietam.