Noon came. The fire of pickets died away.
All eyes were turned to Seminary Ridge,
For lo our sullen foemen--park on park--
Had massed their grim artillery on our corps.
Hoarse voices sunk to whispers or were hushed;
The rugged hills stood listening in awe;
So dread the ominous silence that I heard
The hearts of soldiers throbbing along the line.
"Up from yon battery curled a cloud of smoke,
Shrieked o'er our heads a solitary shell,--
Then instantly in horrid concert roared
Two hundred cannon on the Rebel hills--
Hurling their hissing thunderbolts--and then
An hundred bellowing cannon from our lines
Thundered their iron answer. Horrible
Rolled in the heavens the infernal thunders--rolled
From hill to hill the reverberating roar,
As if the earth were bursting with the throes
Of some vast pent volcano; rocked and reeled,
As in an earthquake-shock, the solid hills;
Anon huge fragments of the hillside rocks,
And limbs and splinters of shot-shattered trees
Danced in the smoke like demons; hissed and howled
The crashing shell-storm bursting over us.
Prone on the earth awaiting the grand charge,
To which we knew the heavy cannonade
Was but a prelude, for two hours we lay--
Two hours that tried the very souls of men--
And many a brave man never rose again.
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