Shouting shrilly with all her might,
“Come and take it, the man that dares!”
Pickett’s Virginians were passing through;
Supple as steel and brown as leather,
Rusty and dusty of hat and shoe,
Wonted to hunger and war and weather;
Peerless, fearless, an army’s flower!
Sterner soldiers the world saw never,
Marching lightly, that summer hour,
To death and failure and fame forever.