And winnowed must be Valour’s chosen grain, Where headlong to a shroud or victory borne, All brave alike the peril proud disdain, Yet culled the chosen for a Hope Forlorn! Mark the doomed band whose plumes seem loftier worn, Whose cheeks more red for courted wounds and death. Oh, many a mother’s breast shall soon be torn, And widowed spouse and sister gasp for breath, Nigh perishing for them whose requiem Glory saith! XV. Hark to the muffled tread, where stealing slow Adown the trenches musters their array, While rank on rank in many a bristling row Is gathering stern as dimly grows the day, Nor from yon level sun a beam can stray! The army’s hum, the awakening city’s din, The dusky masses gilded by no ray, But dim with curling vapours, ere begin The cannon’s roar, make each more doubtful who shall win. XVI. A moment now the bravest pause in awe, ’Twixt life and death. Next moment--direful clash! Opens in thunder every dragon-maw Of fierce artillery with its lightning-flash. As cleaves Heaven’s thunderbolt the mountain ash, So hurled in ruins is the battlement. While Furies with that scourge its granite lash, Not adamant, I ween, were long unbent, And wider grows the breach and easier of ascent. XVII. Within the trenches many an eager eye With fevered gaze doth watch the sinking tide, Whose ebb will give to conquer or to die-- Oh, cruel use of Man’s unerring guide, Which Nature’s hand hath stretched so fair and wide, The throbbing pulse of Ocean! Father Time Seems heavily on leaden wing to ride, And hours seem days, and hour-like minutes climb I’ the anxious nervous pause of that suspense sublime. XVIII. And words are few and brief. It seemeth waste Of breath in idle converse to dilate, When hundreds momently to Judgment haste;-- And sight usurps all functions! Mouths of Fate Prophetic line the wall, where batteries wait The onset, slowly turned the breach to flank, And bayonets bristle ’neath the parapet, _For them_ prepared! The heart’s of interest blank, That hath not waited thus in Battle’s foremost rank. XIX. The hour is come! The signal, “On, men, on!” Sends from the trenches hundreds tow’rds the town. Like greyhounds straining on the slips, they are gone, While grape and shell in showers come pouring down, To where the grisly bastion-breach doth frown. Away, away, o’er slippery tidal shore, O’er seaweed dank and shell-incrusted stone. None stoops to pick, though strewn the seabeach o’er, Save those whom other shells make stoop to rise no more! XX.