Classic Poem

Two desperate Captains in a desperate hour;
Two passionate Leaders of two passionate hosts;
Symbols of clamorous North and clamorous South
Arrayed against each other mortally
For the great final conflict! Thus it came —
The crisis. There at Petersburg it came.

Man's blood cried " Failure! " from a deluged earth,
And two great warriors heard, whose lips had bidden
The vast and red adventures. Who could lift
High hands above the dead and triumph claim?
Or who could dare to speak assurance glad
Across a people's woe of North or South?
Where shone the light behind the Southern gloom?
Where rose a pillar of fire in Northern skies?
Where called a Voice amidst the blackened heavens,
" Behold and see salvation from your God! "

Alas for Lee, like Grant, the Desperate!
Within his soul a thousand tongues cried " Never! "
To open battle with outnumbering foe.
Behind his lines — there was the issuance.
In this storm center rose his last defense.
He named the days to come, " The Terribles! "
He was at last shut up in Petersburg,
Not daring open field, but setting trust
On fate, though visioned in his soul as doom, —
As fate, as doom — while midst his suffering ranks,
Ragged and shoeless and by hunger pressed,
He saw its glowering form, and nigh beyond
Viewed his resources as a long array
Of lean and empty-handed pilgrims pass,
Upon him sickly smiling — staggering
Across their vain oblations through war's dust.

Full well Lee knew his great antagonist,
Determined and continuous of aim,
Dauntless of spirit but as desperate
As dauntless. Midst his valiant men he stood
Cheering their hero deeds, while inwardly
Prostrate he lay upon his face before
The God of battles, feeling brazen sky
Inexorable, and the cordon blue
Circling around his bristling lines of gray.