'_By the left flank, forward--double-quick!_'--We sprang
And dashed for Little Round-Top; formed our line
Flanking the broken battery. Up the slope,
Like frightened sheep when howling wolves pursue,
Fled Sickles' men in panic: hard behind
On came the Rebel columns. Hat in hand
Waving and shouting to his eager corps--
Rode gallant Longstreet leading on the foe.
"Where yonder field-wall bounds the trampled wheat
By grove and meadow, see--among the trees--
Their bayonets gleam advancing. Line on line,
Column on column, in the field beyond,
Their hurrying ranks crowd glittering on and on.
High at the head their flaunting colors fly;
High o'er the roar their wild, triumphant yell
Shrills like the scream of panthers.
"Hancock's voice
Rang down our lines above the cannons' roar:
_'Advance, and take those colors'_[C]--Adown the slope
Like Bengal tigers springing at the hounds,
We sprang and met them at the border wall:
Muzzle to muzzle--steel to steel--we met,
And fought like Romans and like Romans fell.
Even as a cyclone, growling thunder, roars
Down through a dusky forest, and its path
Is strown with broken and uprooted pines
Promiscuous piled in broad and broken swaths,
So crashed our volleys through their serried ranks,
Mowing great swaths of death; yet on and on,
Closing the gaps and yelling like the fiends
That Dante heard along the gulf of hell,
Still came our furious foes.
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