April 19, 1836
BY the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward...
STAND! 1 the ground ’s your own, my braves!
Will ye give it up to slaves?
Will ye look for greener graves?
Hope ye mercy still?
What ’s the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle-peal!
Read it on yon bristling steel!
Ask it,—ye who will.
Fear ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?...
From an “Ode on the Celebration of the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1825”
THE TRUMP hath blown,
And now upon that reeking hill
Slaughter rides screaming on the vengeful ball;
While with terrific signal shrill,
The vultures from their bloody eyries flown,
Hang o’er them like a pall.
Now deeper roll the maddening...
TO 1 drum-beat and heart-beat
A soldier marches by:
There is color in his cheek,
There is courage in his eye,
Yet to drum-beat and heart-beat
In a moment he must die.
By starlight and moonlight,
He seeks the Briton’s camp;
He hears the rustling flag,
And the armèd sentry’s tramp;
And the starlight and...
OUR 1 band is few, but true and tried,
Our leader frank and bold;
The British soldier trembles
When Marion’s name is told.
Our fortress is the good greenwood,
Our tent the cypress-tree;
We know the forest round us,
As seamen know the sea;
We know its walls of thorny vines,
Its glades of reedy grass,
Its...
IN their ragged regimentals
Stood the old Continentals,
Yielding not,
When the grenadiers were lunging,
And like hail fell the plunging
Cannon-shot;
When the files
Of the isles,
From the smoky night encampment, bore the banner of the rampant
Unicorn...
[Published soon after the surrender of Cornwallis]
CORNWALLIS led a country dance,
The like was never seen, sir,
Much retrograde and much advance,
And all with General Greene, sir.
They rambled up and rambled down,
Joined hands, then off they run, sir.
Our General Greene to Charlestown,
The earl to Wilmington, sir.
[Mexico, September 19, 1846]
WE were not many,—we who stood
Before the iron sleet that day;
Yet many a gallant spirit would
Give half his years if but he could
Have been with us at Monterey.
Now here, now there, the shot it hailed
In deadly drifts of fiery spray,
Yet not a single soldier quailed
When wounded...
[April, 1861]
world, art thou ’ware of a storm?
Hark to the ominous sound;
How the far-off gales their battle form,
And the great sea-swells feel ground!
It comes, the Typhoon of Death—
Nearer and nearer it comes!
The horizon thunder of cannon-breath
And the roar of angry drums!
Hurtle, Terror sublime!...
I.
O Keeper of the Sacred Key,
And the Great Seal of Destiny,
Whose eye is the blue canopy,
Look down upon the warring world, and tell us what the end will be.
“Lo, through the wintry atmosphere,
On the white bosom of the sphere,
A cluster of five lakes appear;
And all the land looks like a couch, or warrior’s shield...
