Regiments grim and seared with the scorch of the two days’ battle,
Bleeding and torn with loss, but prompt to the fiery renewal:
Mississippians fierce, and the undismayed Tennesseans,
Valorous Alabamans, and soldiers of North Carolina.
Onward the long wave rolled, steadily, steadily onward,
Gray wave glinting with steel, and the battle-flags floating above it.
So have you seen on the shore the line of the billow advancing,
Fateful, unhasting, sure, to the charge uprearing exultant
Threaten the land with its strength; from its crest, for an exquisite instant,
Foam-bows backward stream,—in the next, it has vanished forever!