Beside a farmer’s home
In shade and shine this rose of battle grew,
What time the rolling drum
Announced the crisis of the war at hand,
As Meade pressed swiftly north through Maryland,
And ever closer to Lee’s columns drew;
On that grim, weary march
Rain seldom fell; the June sun fiercely glowed
And seemed all things to parch;
The winds grew still, nor in their motion swung
The dust that round the lithe battalions clung