and the green
Of hills and dales is changed to yellowish dun,
So fell the strange and lurid light of morn.
And as I gazed I heard the hunger-cries
Of vultures circling on their dusky wings
Above the smoke-hid valley; then they plunged
To gorge themselves upon the slaughter-heaps,
As at the Buddhist temples in Siam
Whereto the hideous vultures flock to feast
With famished dogs upon the pauper dead.

"The day wore on. Two mighty armies stood
Defiant--watching--dreading to assault;
Each hoping that the other would assault
And madly dash against its glittering steel.
As in the jungles of the Chambeze--
Glaring defiance with their fiery eyes--
Two tawny lions--rival monarchs--meet
And fright the forest with their horrid roar;
But ere they close in bloody combat crouch
And wait and watch for vantage in attack;
So on their bannered hills the opposing hosts,
Eager to grapple in the tug of death,
Waited and watched for vantage in the fight.
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.
Then ceased our guns to swell the infernal roar;
The roll and crash of cannon in our front
Lulled, and we heard the foeman's bugle-calls.
Then from the slopes of Seminary Ridge
Poured down the storming columns of the foe.
As w