The cannonade fell still. All along the fish-hook line, The tired men stared at the smoke and waited for it to clear; The men in the centre waited, their rifles gripped in their hands, By the trees of the riding fate, and the low stone wall, and the guns.

These were Hancock’s men, the men of the Second Corps, Eleven States were mixed there, where Minnesota stood In battle-order with Maine, and Rhode Island beside New York, The metals of all the North, cooled into an axe of war.

The strong sticks of the North, bound into a fasces-shape, The hard winters of snow, the wind with the cutting edge, And against them came that summer that does not die with the year, Magnolia and honeysuckle and the blue Virginia flag.