Classic Poem

The war had robbed the cradle,
The war had robbed the grave,
And boys with ringlets golden
Bore bayonet and glaive,
And grandsires flung their olden
Thin hair to battle's wave
When Pickett charged the folden
Pale mists where slaughters rave.

He trode the smitten valley,
The headland's hissing glade,
Right through the bullet tempest,
Right through the cannonade,
Till rank tore rank asunder
With bayonet and blade,
Till earth arose in wonder
To see the death he made.

Six thousand were his heroes,
Three thousand those who bled;
They marched without a shiver
To join the knightly dead;
They crossed the ghostly river
With swift and steady tread;
And fame will shine forever
Around that column's head.

The war had robbed the cradle,
The war had robbed the tomb,
And men whose hair was hoary
And youngsters in their bloom
Went shouting through the glory
That folds where cannon boom,
When Pickett stormed the gory
Sublimities of doom.