And now, at length, The South goes north again in a second raid, In the last cast for fortune. A two-edged chance And yet a chance that may burnish a failing star; For now, on the wide expanse of the Western board, Strong pieces that fought for the South have been swept away Or penned up in hollow Vicksburg. One cool Spring night Porter’s ironclads run the shore-batteries Through a velvet stabbed with hot flashes. Grant lands his men, Drives the relieving force of Johnston away And sits at last in front of the hollow town Like a huge brown bear on its haunches, terribly wai ting. His guns begin to peck at the pillared porches, The sleepy, sun-spattered streets. His siege has begun. Forty-eight days that siege and those guns go on Like a slow hand closing around a hungry throat, Ever more hungry. The hunger of the hollow towns, The hunger of sieges, the hunger of lost hope. As day goes by after day and the shells still whine Till the town is a great mole-burrow of pits and caves Where the thin women hide their children, where the tired men Burrow away from the death that falls from the air And the common sky turned hostile—and still no hope, Still no sight in the sky when the morning breaks But the brown bear there on his haunches, steadfastly waiting, Waiting like Time for the honey-tree to fall.
