Can Such Things Be?

Hazen’s brigade
to
The Memory of Its Soldiers
who fell at
Stone River, Dec. 31, 1862.

The man fell back from the wall, faint and sick.  Almost within an arm’s length was a little depression in the earth; it had been filled by a recent rain—­a pool of clear water.  He crept to it to revive himself, lifted the upper part of his body on his trembling arms, thrust forward his head and saw the reflection of his face, as in a mirror.  He uttered a terrible cry.  His arms gave way; he fell, face downward, into the pool and yielded up the life that had spanned another life.