Like feather bed betwixt a wall

And heavy brunt of cannon ball.

Samuel Butler (1600-1680): Hudibras. Part i. Canto ii. Line 872.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them.

 .   .   .   .

Into the jaws of death,

Into the mouth of hell

Rode the six hundred.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The Charge of the Light Brigade. Stanza 3.