Classic Poem

All through the second harrowing afternoon
There sat he close behind his frowning guns;
Beside him Longstreet, near in front athwart
The road to Emmittsburg, Peach Orchard's Angle, —
Beyond, the Wheatfield, Devil's Den, the Round Tops.
He saw the Corps of Sickles venture forth
Facing Peach Orchard, — witnessed Longstreet's ranks
Meet them with slaughterous hurricane of fire,
Driving them back with steady sheeted flame,
Changing the Wheatfield to a whirlpool red,
Spreading the golden grain with blood-splashed braves,
And filling Devil's Den with crimsoned dead.
There sat he gazing cross the Inferno's gulf,
O'er war's Gehenna and the Valley of Death.
Such three demoniac hours nor time nor space
Had witnessed e'er before, — such deadliness
Of lunge and grapple, turn and overturn,
Slaughter and carnage, surge and havoc wild,
Men changed to shapes betokening the Abyss,
And charged with the white-heaten blasts of hate.
Only the darkness quenched the fires of Hell,
Which he, on Hell's vast battle verge, perceived —
Only one solace his, the Stars and Bars
Afloat and crossing the Inferno's waste,
On towards the murk and chaos of the night.

No mortal save such as had been re-made
Through fume of fire at bloody Fredericksburg,
Through spume of blood at fiery Chancellorsville,
Into a creature to the thunder kin,
Into a thing of lightning's rage begot,
Born midst the whirlwind's furious travailling,
Could have beheld and heard, and lived that day.

But through those hours of blood and fire he lived,
Seeing at length his Georgians leap the Wall
And midst the wild Blue tempest Stars and Bars
Defiant float above the Union guns.
There in that moment Pickett's Charge was born.
And every voice set unto wisdom clear
Could change him not. He had beheld his dream
Rush cross the sky in flaming beckoning.
'Twas travail blazoning the smoking heavens.
'Twas Nemesis a-flying on wild winds.