Crowned with fire,
And zoned by many a burning, blazing belt
From head to foot, and belching sulphurous flames,
The embattled hill appeared a raging fiend--
The Lucifer of hell let loose to reign
Over a world wrapt in the final fires.
"In solid columns massed our frenzied foes
Beat out their life against the blazing hill--
Broke and re-formed and madly charged again,
And thundered like the storm-lashed, furious sea
Beating in vain against the solid cliffs.
Foremost in from our veteran regiment
Breasted the brunt of battle, but we bent
Beneath the onsets as the red-hot bar
Bends to the sledge, until our furious foes--
Mown as the withered prairie-grass is mown
By wild October fires--fell back and left
A field of bloody agony and death
About the base, and victory on the hill.
"I lost a score of riflemen that night;
My first lieutenant--his last battle over--
Lay cut in twain upon the battle-line.
With lantern dim wide o'er the slaughter-field
I searched at midnight for my wounded men,
But chiefly searched for Paul. An hour or more
I sought among the groaning and the dead,
Stooping and to the dim light turning up
The ghastly faces, till at last I found
Him whom I sought, and on the outer line--
Feet to the foe and silent face to heaven--
Death pale and bleeding from a ragged wound
Pleading with feeble voice to let him be
And die upon the field, we bore him thence;
And tenderly his comrades carried him,
Sheltered with blankets, on the weary march
At dead of night in dismal storm begun.
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