O streams of rippling steel That northward flowed with current ever true! In thought we watched you wheel Among the hills, a winding to and fro, The weapons sparkling o’er the men below Like glancing foam above the waves of blue! We knew your end and source, And that your torrents, crowned with portents dire, Would keep their onward course Till in the battle’s plunge, with thunder’s roar, And scorching flames, your cleansing tides should pour Abroad, and save the nation as by fire! The first day of July, Just north of Gettysburg, the fight began Whose memory will not die. There lay along the outskirts of a wood A regiment busy in the work of blood; And he that wore the rose watched every man, Alert, unvexed, intense, And kept the firing cool, and fierce, and fast; In front in column dense Stern Southern valor stormed, and would not flinch, Nor be denied, yet could not win an inch-- Till far outflanked our lines gave way at last. Behind the frightened town, On Cemetery Hill the rout was stayed; And there the men lay down And slept content among the graves that night; And there this pallid rose, in soft moonlight, Upon its wearer’s heaving bosom swayed. The gathering armies clashed, And on the circling hills the second day, Incessant cannon crashed; And shot and shell tore up each reverent mound, And flung the tombstones’ shattered fragments round-- Poor rose, that heard the din of such a fray! On the third day, behold! It saw the climax of the battle come; When calm, and stern, and bold The great Virginians charged and could not win, Though manhood’s flower, as they have ever been In field, and hall, and by the hearth of home. How proud their column moved, Up the long slope of death with stubborn tread, Obeying him they loved! And still against the storm of fire that scourged Supporting squadrons backward as it surged, How fierce they held their way unwearièd! Mayhap with other foes They might have won; but ever slow to yield And ever prompt to close Were Hancock’s men; and the Virginian shaft That pierced our lines was shattered, head and haft, Within the wound!--And Lee had lost the field. Amid the eddied smoke, The groans of dying men, and the glad cheer Of victory that broke From hill to hill, this thing of beauty died; And he that wore and had forgot it, sighed And thought of it again as something dear; So from his breast he took The rose and sent it home to have it set Within this simple book, The favorite of a girl he loved and lost, And ’mid the leaves it lingers like a ghost-- Though they be gone, the flower abideth yet!