GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER
HILL BATTLE
AS SHE SAW IT FROM THE BELFRY
'Tis like stirring living embers when, at eighty,
one remembers
All the achings and the quakings of "the times
that tried men's souls";
When I talk of Whig and Tory, when I tell
the Rebel story,
To you the words are ashes, but to me they're
burning coals.
I had heard the muskets' rattle of the April
running battle;
Lord Percy's hunted soldiers, I can see their
red coats still;
But a deadly chill comes o'er me, as the day
looms up before me,
When a thousand men lay bleeding on the slopes
of Bunker's Hill.
'Twas a peaceful summer's morning, when the
first thing gave us warning
Was the booming of the cannon from the river
and the shore:
"Child," says grandma, "what's the matter,
what is all this noise and clatter?
Have those scalping Indian devils come to
murder us once more?"
Poor old soul! my sides were shaking in the
midst of all my quaking
To hear her talk of Indians when the guns
began to roar:
She had seen the burning village, and the
slaughter and the pillage,
When the Mohawks killed her father, with their
bullets through his door.
Then I said, "Now, dear old granny, don't you
fret and worry any,
For I'll soon come back and tell you whether
this is work or play;
There can't be mischief in it, so I won't
be gone a minute"---
For a minute then I started. I was gone the
livelong day.
No time for bodice-lacing or for looking-glass
grimacing;
Down my hair went as I hurried, tumbling half-way
to my heels;
God forbid your ever knowing, when there's
blood around her flowing,
How the lonely, helpless daughter of a quiet
household feels!
In the street I heard a thumping; and I knew
it was the stumping
Of the Corporal, our old neighbor, on that
wooden leg he wore,
With a knot of women round him,---it was lucky
I had found him---
So I followed with the others, and the Corporal
marched before.
They were making for the steeple,---the old
soldier and his people;
The pigeons circled round us as we climbed
the creaking stair,
Just across the narrow river---O, so close
it made me shiver!---
Stood a fortress on the hilltop that but yesterday
was bare.
Not slow our eyes to find it; well we knew
who stood behind it,
Though the earthwork hid them from us, and
the stubborn walls were dumb:
Here were sister, wife, and mother, looking
wild upon each other,
And their lips were white with terror as they
said, THE HOUR HAS COME!
The morning slowly wasted, not a morsel had
we tasted,
And our heads were almost splitting with the
cannons' deafening thrill,
When a figure tall and stately round the rampart
strode sedately;
It was PRESCOTT, one since told me; he commanded
on the hill.
Every woman's heart grew bigger when we saw
his manly figure,
With the banyan buckled round it, standing
up so straight and tall;
Like a gentleman of leisure who is strolling
out for pleasure,
Through the storm of shells and cannon-shot
he walked around the wall.
At eleven the streets were swarming, for the
red-coats' ranks were forming;
At noon in marching order they were moving
to the piers;
How the bayonets gleamed and glistened, as
we looked far down and listened
To the trampling and the drum-beat of the
belted grenadiers!
At length the men have started, with a cheer
(it seemed faint-hearted),
In their scarlet regimentals, with their knapsacks
on their backs,
And the reddening, rippling water, as after
a sea-fight's slaughter,
Round the barges gliding onward blushed like
blood along their tracks.
So they crossed to the other border, and again
they formed in order;
And the boats came back for soldiers, came
for soldiers, soldiers still:
The time seemed everlasting to us women faint
and fasting,---
At last they're moving, marching, marching
proudly up the hill.
We can see the bright steel glancing all along
the lines advancing---
Now the front rank fires a volley---they have
thrown away their shot;
Far behind the earthwork lying, all the balls
above them flying,
Our people need not hurry; so they wait and
answer not.
Then the Corporal, our old cripple (he would
swear sometimes and tipple),---
He had heard the bullets whistle (in the old
French war) before,---
Calls out in words of jeering, just as if
they all were hearing,---
And his wooden leg thumps fiercely on the
dusty belfry floor:---
"Oh! fire away, ye villains, and earn King
George's shillin's,
But ye'll waste a ton of powder afore a 'rebel'
falls;
You may bang the dirt and welcome, they're
as safe as Dan'l Malcolm
Ten foot beneath the gravestone that you've
splintered with your balls!"
In the hush of expectation, in the awe and
trepidation
Of the dread approaching moment, we are well-nigh
breathless all;
Though the rotten bars are failing on the
rickety belfry railing,
We are crowding up against them like the waves
against a wall.
Just a glimpse (the air is clearer), they are
nearer,---nearer,---nearer,
When a flash---a curling smoke-wreath---then
a crash---the steeple shakes---
The deadly truce is ended; the tempest's shroud
is rended;
Like a morning mist it gathered, like a thunder-cloud
it breaks!
O the sight our eyes discover as the blue-black
smoke blows over!
The red-coats stretched in windrows as a mower
rakes his hay;
Here a scarlet heap is lying, there a headlong
crowd is flying
Like a billow that has broken and is shivered
into spray.
Then we cried, "The troops are routed! they
are beat---it can't be doubted!
God be thanked, the fight is over!"---Ah!
the grim old soldier's smile!
"Tell us, tell us why you look so?" (we could
hardly speak, we shook so),---
"Are they beaten? Are they beaten? ARE they
beaten?"---"Wait a while."
O the trembling and the terror! for too soon
we saw our error:
They are baffled, not defeated; we have driven
them back in vain;
And the columns that were scattered, round
the colors that 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!
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
TRANSCENDENTALISTS
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
OLIVER
WENDELL HOLMES
HALE IN THE BUSH
The breezes went steadily through the tall
pines,
A-saying "oh! hu-ush!" a-saying "oh! hu-ush!"
As stilly stole by a bold legion of horse,
For Hale in the bush, for Hale in the bush.
"Keep still!" said the thrush, as she nestled
her young
In a nest by the road; in a nest by the road.
"For the tyrants are near, and with them appear
What bodes us no good, what bodes us no good."
The brave captain heard it, and thought of
his home
In a cot by the brook; in a cot by the brook.
With mother and sister and memories dear,
he so gaily forsook, he so gaily forsook.
Cooling shades of the night were coming apace,
The tattoo had beat, the tattoo had beat;
The noble one sprang from his dark lurking
place,
To make his retreat, to make his retreat.
He warily trod on the dry rustling leaves,
As he passed through the wood, as he passed
through the wood;
And silently gained his rude launch on the
shore,
As she played with the flood, as she played
with the flood.
The guards of the camp on that dark dreary
night,
Had a murderous will, had a murderous will;
They took him and bore him after from the
shore,
To a hut on the hill, to a hut on the hill.
No mother was there, nor a friend who could
cheer,
In that little stone cell, in that little
stone cell;
But he trusted in love from his Father above
--
In his heart all was well, in his heart all
was well.
An ominous owl with his solemn bass voice,
Sat moaning hard by, sat moaning hard by:
"The tyrant's proud minions most gladly rejoice,
For he must soon die, for he must soon die."
The brave fellow told them, no thing he restrained,--
The cruel general! the cruel general!--
His errand from camp, of the ends to be gained,
And said that was all, and said that was all.
They took him and bound him and bore him away,
Down the hill's grassy side, down the hill's
grassy side.
'T was there the base hirelings, in royal
array,
His cause did deride, his cause did deride.
Five minutes were given, short moments, no
more,
For him to repent, for him to repent.
He prayed for his mother -- he asked not another,
--
To Heaven he went, to Heaven he went.
The faith of a martyr the tragedy showed,
As he trod the last stage, as he trod the
last stage.
And Britons will shudder at gallant Hale's
blood,
As his words do presage, as his words do presage.
"Thou pale king of terrors, thou life's gloomy
foe,
Go frighten the slave, go frighten the slave;
Tell tyrants, to you their allegiance they
owe--
No fears for the brave, no fears for the brave!"
FRANCIS HOPKINSON, 1777
FRANCIS
HOPKINSON 1737-1791
FRANCIS HOPKINSON
THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON
Then haste ye, Prescott and Revere!
Bring all the men of Lincoln here;
Let Chelmsford, Littleton, Carlisle,
Let Acton, Bedford, hither file—
Oh, hither file, and plainly see
Out of a wound leap Liberty.
Say, Woodman April! all in green,
Say, Robin April! hast thou seen
In all thy travel round the earth
Ever a morn of calmer birth?
But Morning's eye alone serene
Can gaze across yon village-green
To where the trooping British run
Through Lexington.
Good men in fustian, stand ye still;
The men in red come o'er the hill,
Lay down your arms, damned rebels! cry
The men in red full haughtily.
But never a grounding gun is heard;
The men in fustian stand unstirred;
Dead calm, save maybe a wise bluebird
Puts in his little heavenly word.
O men in red! if ye but knew
The half as much as bluebirds do,
Now in this little tender calm
Each hand would out, and every palm
With patriot palm strike brotherhood's stroke
Or ere these lines of battle broke.
O men in red! if ye but knew
The least of all that bluebirds do,
Now in this little godly calm
Yon voice might sing the Future's Psalm—
The Psalm of Love with the brotherly eyes
Who pardons and is very wise—
Yon voice that shouts, high-hoarse with ire,
Fire!
The red-coats fire, the homespuns fall:
The homespuns' anxious voices call,
Brother, art hurt? and Where hit, John?
And, Wipe this blood, and Men, come on,
And Neighbor, do but lift my head,
And Who is wounded? Who is dead?
Seven are killed. My God! my God!
Seven lie dead on the village sod.
Two Harringtons, Parker, Hadley, Brown,
Monroe and Porter,—these are down.
Nay, look! stout Harrington not yet dead.
He crooks his elbow, lifts his head.
He lies at the step of his own house-door;
He crawls and makes a path of gore.
The wife from the window hath seen, and rushed;
He hath reached the step, but the blood hath
gushed;
He hath crawled to the step of his own house-door,
But his head hath dropped: he will crawl no
more.
Clasp Wife, and kiss, and lift the head,
Harrington lies at his doorstep dead.
But, O ye Six that round him lay
And bloodied up that April day!
As Harrington fell, ye likewise fell—
At the door of the House wherein ye dwell;
As Harrington came, ye likewise came
And died at the door of your House of Fame.
SIDNEY LANIER
LANIER
SIDNEY
LANIER -- BALTIMORE'S SOUTERN POET-MUSICIAN