A flag from its summit floated
And a circling earthwork grew,
As the arms of the swarming soldiers
At their toil unwonted flew.
"Aha!" cried the Yankee leader,
"So the panther has turned at bay
With his claws of steel and his breath of fire
Behind that wall of clay!
"Our steel is in muscle and sinew.
But I know,"—and his voice rang free,—
"Right well I know we shall strike a blow
That the world will leap to see."
I stood by a blazing city
Till the fires had died away,
Save a flickering gleam in the ruins
And a fitful gleam on the bay.
But a swarthy cove by the water
Blue-bristled from point to base,
With the breath of demons, bursting
Through the crust of their prison-place;
And another beside it flaunted
A thousand rags of red,
Like the Plague King's dancing banners
On a mound of the swollen dead.
Twin brothers of flame and evil,
In their quivering living light,
They ruled with a frightful beauty
The desolate waste of night.
Thus did the battle mountain
Blazon with flashes dire;
The leaguered crest responded
In a coronal of fire.
The tough old fowling-pieces
In huddling tumult rang.
Louder the muskets' roaring!
Shriller the rifles' clang!
Hour after hour the turmoil
Gathered and swelled apace,
Till the hill seemed a volcano
Bursting in every place.