Soldiers of the light

by Helen Gray Cone

Sacred the sunless hour; now rent, as the veil of the temple,

All that silver spell. In the dewy cool of the coverts

Sounded no voices of birds; but the whistling hiss of the bullet,

Ruffling volley on volley, and yell of the South, and the angry

Roar of the strong hurrah from the throats of the soldiers of Slocum,

There on the rough sheer steep, in the thick of the Culp’s Hill woodlands,

There on the rock-strewn plain, till the sun stared hot on the struggle,

Jealously battling to wrest, from the grasp of a blindfold victor,

Vantage but half discerned, and a foothold found in the darkness:

Brave was the blindfold victor, and fiercely he clung to his foothold;