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IRISH SONGS AND LYRICS 233 |
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The armies stand by to behold the dread meeting ;
The work must be done by a desperate few; The black-mouthed guns on the height give them greeting — From gun-mouth to plain every grass blade in view. Strong earthworks are there, and the rifles behind them Are Georgia militia—an Irish brigade — Their caps have green badges, as if to remind them
Of all the brave record their country has made. The stormers go forward—the Federals cheer them ; They breast the smooth hillside—the black mouths are dumb; The riflemen lie in the works till they near them,
And cover the stormers as upward they come. Was ever a death-march so grand and so solemn ? At last, the dark summit with flame is enlined; The great guns belch doom on the sacrificed column, That reels from the height, leaving hundreds behind. The armies are hushed—there is no cause for cheering:
The fall of brave men to brave men is a pain. Again come the stormers ! and as they are nearing
The flame-sheeted rifle-lines, reel back again. And so till full noon come the Federal masses — Flung back from the height, as the cliff flings a wave; Brigade on brigade to the death-struggle passes,
No wavering rank till it steps on the grave. Then comes a brief lull, and the smoke-pall is lifted,
The gre'en of the hillside, no longer is seen ; The dead soldiers lie as the sea-weed is drifted,
The earthworks still held by the badges of green. Have they quailed ? is the word. No: again they are forming — |
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