Yet sick were the souls of the leaders, Burdened with pity and loss; the field with unspeakable anguish Groaned to the large clear moon; might the army abide such a morrow? Cautious courageous Meade, not playing with lives as with counters, Held his commanders in council, retracing, unweaving the war-web, Shifting the fiery threads. At the last, it was brought to the question. Was it retreat that slept in the brazen throats of the bugles? Each after each answered No; Newton and Gibbon and Birney, Williams and Sedgwick and Sykes, Slocum and Howard and Hancock, Soul-sick with pity and loss, yet steadily acting the soldier, Man after man answered No. They were all one will; and their Captain Gripped the huge host as a sword, that was utterly his for the wielding. --So the warm bright night drew on to the Day of decision. III Day crept wan on the world. ’Twas the hour when the birds in the branches One after one awake, in the dewy cool and the dimness, Small sweet voices of joy, praising the sunlight that shall be. Silvery the hour, and a semblance of death in the birth of the morning; Sacred the sunless hour; now rent, as the veil of the temple, All that silver spell. In the dewy cool of the coverts Sounded no voices of birds; but the whistling hiss of the bullet, Ruffling volley on volley, and yell of the South, and the angry Roar of the strong hurrah from the throats of the soldiers of Slocum, There on the rough sheer steep, in the thick of the Culp’s Hill woodlands, There on the rock-strewn plain, till the sun stared hot on the struggle, Jealously battling to wrest, from the grasp of a blindfold victor, Vantage but half discerned, and a foothold found in the darkness: Brave was the blindfold victor, and fiercely he clung to his foothold; Almost he groped to the prize, to the gleam of the hard white highway On to Baltimore sweeping, the one sure outlet of safety; Almost he chanced with his hand on the close-hoarded power of the powder: Brave and blind, or beholding too late, on the plain and the hillside, Seven vain hours he fought; then reeling let go the advantage, Fell back panting and foiled. Once again in its rugged intrenchments Rested the Corps of the Star; on the field rested many forever. So sped the morn on the Right. IV