Retreat!

The infantry screeched and fled,
Hearts bound by sorrow,
Heads bowed in shame,
So many blind and broken men,
A river of molten confusion,
Gurgling over ruined roads,
Seeping sadly into hidden cracks,
Into deep-churned mud, in silence,
The earth swallowed them up.
Then they came, the crying cavalry,
A single regiment rolling along,
Like horsemen of the apocalypse,
Their presence thick and palpable,
Due to the stench of festering galls.