And then they danced their last war-dance to gain
The physical fever of the blood and brain
That might their dashed and drooping spirit sustain,
Nor let their flagging courage fail or flinch.
Then formal frenzy in full play was seen;
The dancers seemed a mob of maniacs, swayed
By one insane volition, all obeyed,
Their mad gesticulations to enact
With frantic uniformity, exact
As some innumerably-limbed machine,
With rows of corresponding joints compact
All one way working from a single winch:
The leaping, dense, conglomerate mass of men
Now all together off the ground—in air—
Like some vast bird a moment’s space—and then
Down, with a single ponderous shock, again
Down, thundering on the groaning, trembling plain!
And every gesture fury could devise
And practice regulate was rampant there;
The loud slaps sounding on five hundred thighs;
Five hundred hideous faces drawn aside,
Distorted with one paroxysm wide;
Five hundred tongues like one, protruding red,
Thrust straining out to taunt, defy, deride;
And the cold glitter of a thousand eyes
Upturning white far back into the head;
The heads from side to side with scorn all jerking
And demon-spite, as if the wearers tried
To jerk them off those frantic bodies working
With such convulsive energy the while!
—Thus—and with grinding, gnashing teeth, and fierce
Explosions deep in oft narrated style,
Those volleyed pants of heartfelt execration;
Or showers of shuddering, hissing groans that pierce
The air with harsh accordance, like the crash
When regiments their returning ramrods dash
Sharp down the barrel-grooves with quivering clang
In myriad-ringing unison—they lash
Their maddened souls to madder desperation!—
Thus all the day their fury hissed and rang;
So groaned, leapt, foamed, grimaced they o’er and o’er;
Till all were burning, ere the Sun should soar,
Against that stubborn Fort to fling themselves once more.