High Tide

a poem inspired by Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg

The gray ocean sits with quiet, murmuring echo.
Neath late sun rays the gathering storm soon o'er the fields will flow.
In shaded trees trees the tide's waves sit,
wait patient for the hour.
One final surge, a last attempt.
The fire in their eyes is lit.

From afar they've come, answering homeland's call.
From mountainside, from hill and vale, where leaves are bright in fall.
No fear now their faces show,
but stout are all their hearts.
Prepared to dash cross deadly beach,
this gray, undaunted flow.

And now the thunder, precursor to the gale
leaps between ocean and beach, a heavy iron hail.
From cannon mouth the lightning burst
is joined by rumbling blast.
Their faces set, the hour nears,
to march up that beach accursed.

Arrives the moment, the waves break from the shade
towards shorn up works on deadly beach, far from their sheltering glade.
Rifles reflect the daytime light,
the tide's pace, steady, sure.
As slowly up the beach it creeps,
to the ghastly, deadly, fight.

The storm in earnest breaks, opens the gates of Hell,
and faster now does surge the tide, lets forth a piercing yell.
The rifles spit a deadly rain,
the cannons belch forth death.
Undaunted the tide charges on,
across the blood soaked plain.

Diminished by the storm, the tide reaches it's peak,
a desperate struggle to break the stones, to drive them back they seek.
With angry clash the gray-clad tide,
breaks on stubborn stones of blue.
On stormy beach of blood and death,
like Titans they collide.

Fog clings to the beach, the sun choked off, estranged.
The wall of stones, now dimly seen, is standing still, unchanged.
It's anger gone, recedes the tide,
like gray ghosts giving way.
The bloody expanse it crosses 'gain,
where it waves were broke, and died.

The Sun's returned, light on the beach does play.
Covered now the mighty waves with faces hard and fey.
But that dark day was not their last,
nor are they now forgotten.
Still in our hearts they ever dwell,
who charged the cannon blast.