Poems of American Patriotism. Various

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       were tattered,

       Toward the sullen silent fortress turn their belted breasts again.

      All at once, as we are gazing, lo the roofs of Charlestown blazing!

       They have fired the harmless village; in an hour it will be down!

       The Lord in heaven confound them, rain his fire and brimstone

       round them—

       The robbing, murdering red-coats, that would burn a peaceful town!

      They are marching, stern and solemn; we can see each massive column

       As they near the naked earth-mound with the slanting walls

       so steep.

       Have our soldiers got faint-hearted, and in noiseless haste

       departed?

       Are they panic-struck and helpless? Are they palsied or asleep?

      Now! the walls they're almost under! scarce a rod the foes asunder!

       Not a firelock flashed against them! up the earthwork they

       will swarm!

       But the words have scarce been spoken, when the ominous

       calm is broken,

       And a bellowing crash has emptied all the vengeance of the storm!

      So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted backward to the water,

       Fly Pigot's running heroes and the frightened braves of Howe;

       And we shout, "At last they're done for, it's their barges they

       have run for:

       They are beaten, beaten, beaten; and the battle's over now!"

      And we looked, poor timid creatures, on the rough old soldier's

       features,

       Our lips afraid to question, but he knew what we would ask:

       "Not sure," he said; "keep quiet—once more, I guess, they'll

       try it—

       Here's damnation to the cut-throats!" then he handed me his flask,

      Saying, "Gal, you're looking shaky; have a drop of old Jamaiky:

       I'm afraid there'll be more trouble afore this job is done;"

       So I took one scorching swallow; dreadful faint I felt and hollow,

       Standing there from early morning when the firing was begun.

      All through those hours of trial I had watched a calm clock dial,

       As the hands kept creeping, creeping—they were creeping

       round to four,

       When the old man said, "They're forming with their bayonets

       fixed for storming:

       It's the death grip that's a coming—they will try the works

       once more."

      With brazen trumpets blaring, the flames behind them glaring,

       The deadly wall before them, in close array they come;

       Still onward, upward toiling, like a dragon's fold uncoiling—

       Like the rattlesnake's shrill warning the reverberating drum!

      Over heaps all torn and gory—shall I tell the fearful story,

       How they surged above the breastwork, as a sea breaks over a deck;

       How, driven, yet scarce defeated, our worn-out men retreated,

       With their powder-horns all emptied, like the swimmers from a wreck?

      It has all been told and painted; as for me, they say I fainted,

       And the wooden-legged old Corporal stumped with me down the stair:

       When I woke from dreams affrighted the evening lamps were lighted—

       On the floor a youth was lying; his bleeding breast was bare.

      And I heard through all the flurry, "Send for WARREN! hurry! hurry!

       Tell him here's a soldier bleeding, and he'll come and dress his

       wound!"

       Ah, we knew not till the morrow told its tale of death and sorrow,

       How the starlight found him stiffened on the dark and bloody ground.

      Who the youth was, what his name was, where the place from

       which he came was,

       Who had brought him from the battle, and had left him at our door,

       He could not speak to tell us; but 'twas one of our brave fellows,

       As the homespun plainly showed us which the dying soldier wore.

      For they all thought he was dying, as they gathered 'round

       him crying—

       And they said, "O, how they'll miss him!" and, "What will

       his mother do?"

       Then, his eyelids just unclosing like a child's that has been dozing,

       He faintly murmured, "Mother!"—and—I saw his eyes were blue.

      —"Why, grandma, how you're winking!"—Ah, my child, it

       sets me thinking

       Of a story not like this one. Well, he somehow lived along;

       So we came to know each other, and I nursed him like a—mother,

       Till at last he stood before me, tall, and rosy-cheeked, and strong.

      And we sometimes walked together in the pleasant summer weather;

      —"Please to tell us what his name was?"—Just your own,

       my little dear—

       There's his picture Copley painted: we became so well acquainted,

       That—in short, that's why I'm grandma, and you children all

       are here!

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