hen the rain-clouds from the rim of heaven
Are gathered by the four contending winds,
And madly whirled until they meet and clash
Above the hills and burst--down pours a sea
And plunges roaring down through gorge and glen,
So poured the surging columns of our foes
Adown the slopes and spread along the vale
In glittering ranks of battle--line on line--
Mile-long. Above the roar of cannon rose
In one wild yell the Rebel battle-cry.
Flash in the sun their serried ranks of steel;
Before them swarm a cloud of skirmishers.
That eager host the gallant Pickett leads;
He right and left his fiery charger wheels;
Steadies the lines with clarion voice; anon
His outstretched saber gleaming points the way.
As mid the myriad twinkling stars of heaven
Flashes the blazing comet, and a column
Of fiery fury follows it, so flashed
The dauntless chief, so followed his wild host.

"We waited grim and silent till they crossed
The center and began the dread ascent.
Then brazen bugles rang the clarion call;
Arose as one twice twenty thousand men,
And all our hillsides blazed with crackling fire.
With sudden crash and simultaneous roar
An hundred cannon opened instantly,
And all the vast hills shuddered under us.
Yelling their mad defiance to our fire
Still on and upward came our daring foes.
As when upon the wooded mountain-side
The unchained Loki[D] riots and the winds
Of an autumnal tempest lash the flames,
Whirling the burning fragments through the air--
Huge blazing limbs and tops of blasted pines--
Mowing wide swaths with circling scythes of fire,
So fell our fire upon the advancing host,
And lashed their ranks and mowed them into heaps,
Cleaving broad avenues of death. Still on
And up they come undaunted, closing up
The ghastly gaps and firing as they come.
As if protected by the hand of heaven,
Rides at their head their gallant leader still;
The tempest drowns his voice--his naming sword
Gleams in the flash of rifles. One wild yell--Like
the mad hunger-howl of famished wolves
Midwinter on the flying cabris'[E] trail,
Swelled by ten thousand hideous voices, shrills,
And through the battle-smoke the bravest burst.
Flutters their tattered banner on our wall!
Thunders their shout of victory! Appalled
Our serried ranks are broken--but in vain!
On either hand our cannon enfilade,
Crushing great gaps along the stalwart lines;
In front our deadly rifles volley still,
Mowing the toppling swaths of daring men.
Behold--they falt