Bland, Moylan, Sheldon the long lines enforceWith light-arm'd scouts, with solid squares of horse;And Knox from his full park to battle bringsHis brazen tubes, the last resort of kings.The long black rows in sullen silence wait,Their grim jaws gaping, soon to utter fate;When at his word the carbon clouds shall rise,And well aim'd thunders rock the shores and skies.
Two foreign Youths had caught the splendent flame,To Fame's hard school the warm disciples came;To learn sage Liberty's unlesson'd lore,To brave the tempest on her war-beat shore,Prometheus like, to snatch a beam of day,And homeward bear the unscintillating ray,To pour new life on Europe's languid horde,Where millions crouch beneath one stupid lord.Tho Austria's keiser and the Russian czarTo dungeons doom them, and with fetters mar,Fayette o'er Gaul's vast realm some light shall spread,Brave Kosciusko rear Sarmatia's head;From Garonne's bank to Duna's wintry skies,The morn shall move, and slumbering nations rise.And tho their despots quake with wild alarms,And lash and agonize the world to arms,Whelm for a while the untutor'd race in blood,And turn against themselves the raging flood;Yet shall the undying dawn, with silent pace,Reach over earth and every land embrace;Till Europe's well taught sons the boon shall share,And bless the labors of the imprison'd Pair.
So Leda's Twins from Colchis raped the Fleece,And brought the treasure to their native Greece.She hail'd her heroes from their finished wars,Assigned their place amid the cluster'd stars,Bade round the eternal sky their trophies flame,And charged the zodiac with their deathless fame.--Here move the Strangers, here in freedom's causeHis untried blade each stripling hero draws,On the great chief their eyes in transport roll,And war and Washington renerve the soul.
Steuben advanced, in veteran armor drest,For Prussian lore distinguish'd o'er the rest,The tactic lore; to this he bends his care,And here transplants the discipline of war.Other brave chieftains of illustrious nameRise into sight and equal honors claim;But who can tell the dew-drops of the morn,Or count the rays that in the diamond burn?--Grieve not, my valiant friends; the faithful songShall soon redress the momentary wrong;Your own bright swords have cleaved your course to fame,And all her hundred tongues recognize every claim.
Now the broad field as untaught warriors shade,The sun's glad beam their shining arms display'd;High waved great Washington his glittering steel,Bade the long train in circling order wheel;And, while the banner'd youths around him prest,With voice revered he thus the ranks addrest:Ye generous bands, behold the task to save,Or yield whole nations to an instant grave.See hosted myriads crowding to your shore,Hear from all ports their vollied thunders roar;From Boston heights their bloody standards play,O'er long Champlain they lead their northern way,Virginian banks behold their streamers glide,And hostile navies load each southern tide.Beneath their steps your towns in ashes lie,Your inland empires feast their greedy eye;Soon shall your fields to lordly parks be turn'd,Your children butcher'd and your villas burn'd;While following millions, thro the reign of time.Who claim their birth in this indulgent clime,Bend the weak knee, to servile toils consigned,And sloth and slavery still degrade mankind.Rise then to war, to timely vengeance rise,Ere the gray sire, the helpless infant dies;Look thro the world, see endless years descend,What realms, what ages on your arms depend!Reverse the fate, avenge the insulted sky,Move to the work; we conquer or we die.
So spoke Columbia's chief; his guiding handPoints out their march to every ardent band,Assigns to each brave leader, as they claim,His test of valor and his task of fame.With his young host Montgomery first moves forth,To crush the vast invasion of the north;O'er streams and lakes their flags far onward play,Navies and forts surrendering mark their way;Rocks, fens and deserts thwart the paths they go,And hills before them lose their crags in snow.Loud Laurence, clogg'd with ice, indignant feelsTheir sleet-clad oars, choked helms and crusted keels;They buffet long his tides; when rise in sightQuebec's dread walls, and Wolfe's unclouded heightAlready there a few brave patriots stood,Worn down with toil, by famine half subdued;Untrench'd before the town, they dare opposeTheir fielded cohorts to the forted foes.Ah gallant troop! deprived of half the praiseThat deeds like yours in other times repays,Since your prime chief (the favorite erst of fame)Hath sunk so deep his hateful, hideous name,That every honest Muse with horror flingsThe name unsounded from her sacred strings;Else what high tones of rapture must have toldThe first great action of a chief so bold!Twas his, twas yours, to brave unusual storms,To tame rude nature in her drearest forms;Foodless and guideless, thro that waste of earth,You march'd long months; and, sore reduced by dearth,Reach'd the proud capital, too feeble farTo tempt unaided such a task of war;Till now Montgomery's host, with hopes elate,Joins your scant powers, to try the test of fate.
With skilful glance he views the fortress round.Bristled with pikes, with dark artillery crown'd;Resolves with naked steel to scale the towers,And snatch a realm from Britain's hostile powers.Now drear December's boreal blasts arise,A roaring hailstorm sweeps the shuddering skies,Night with condensing horror mantles all,And trembling watch-lights glimmer from the wall.From bombs o'erarching, fusing, bursting high,The glare scarce wanders thro the loaded sky;And in the louder shock of meteors drown'd,The accustom'd ear in vain expects the sound.
He points the assault; and, thro the howling air,O'er rocky ramparts leads audacious war.Swift rise the rapid files; the walls are redWith flashing flames, that show the piles of dead;Till back recoiling from the ranks of slain,They leave their leader with a feeble train,Begirt with foes within the sounding wall,Who thick beneath his single falchion fall.But short the conflict; others hemm'd him round,And brave Montgomery prest the gory ground.A second Wolfe Columbus here beheld,In youthful charms, a soul undaunted yield;Forlorn, o'erpower'd, his hardy host remains,Stretch'd by his side, or led in captive chains.Macpherson, Cheesman share their general's doom;Meigs, Morgan, Dearborn, planning deeds to come,Resign impatient prisoners; soon to wieldTheir happier swords in many a broader field.
Triumphant to Newyork's ill forted postBritannia turns her vast amphibious host,That seas and storms, obedient to her hand,Heave and discharge on every distant land;Fleets, floating batteries shake Manhattan's shore,And Hellgate rocks reverberate the roar.Swift o'er the shuddering isles that line the bayThe red flags wave, and battering engines play;Howe leads aland the interminable train,While his bold brother still bestorms the main,Great Albion's double pride; both famed afarOn each vext element, each world of war;Where British rapine follows peaceful toil,And murders nations but to seize their spoil.
Wide sweep the veteran myriads o'er the strand,Outnumbering thrice the raw colonial band;Flatbush and Harlem sink beneath their fires,Brave Stirling yields, and Sullivan retires.In vain sage Washington, from hill to hill,Plays round his foes with more than Fabian skill,Retreats, advances, lures them to his snare,To balance numbers by the shifts of war.For not their swords alone, but fell diseaseThins his chill camp and chokes the neighboring seas.The baleful malady, from Syrius sent,floats in each breeze, impesting every tent,Strikes the young soldier with the morning ray,And lays him lifeless ere the close of day,Far from his father's house, his mother's care,And all the charities that nursed him there.
Damp'd is the native rage that first impell'dThe insulted colons to the battling field;When first their high-soul'd sentiment of rightAnd full-vein'd vigor nerved their arm to fight.For stript of health, benumb'd thy vital flood,Thy muscles lax'd and decomposed thy blood,What is thy courage, man? a foodless flame,A light unseen, a soul without a frame.
Each day the decimated ranks forgoTheir dying comrades to repulse the foe,And each damp night, along the slippery trench,Breathe at their post the suffocating stench;They sink by hundreds on the vapory soil,Till a new fight relieves their deadlier toil.At last from fruitless combat, sore defeat,To Croton hills they lead a long retreat;Pale, curbed, exanimate, in dull despair,Train the scant relics of the twofold war:The sword, the pestilence press hard behind;The body both assail, and one beats down the mind.
.
British cruelty to American prisoners. Prison Ship. Retreat of Washington with the relics of his army, pursued by Howe. Washington recrossing the Delaware in the night, to surprise the British van, is opposed by uncommon obstacles. His success in this audacious enterprise lays the foundation of the American empire. A monument to be ere on the bank of the Delaware. Approach of Burgoyne, sailing up the St. Laurence with an army of Britons and various other nations. Indignant energy of the colonies, compared to that of Greece in opposing the invasion of Xerxes. Formation of an army of citizens, under the command of Gates. Review of the American and British armies, and of the savage tribes who join the British standard. Battle of Saratoga. Story of Lucinda. Second battle, and capture of Burgoyne and his army.
But of all tales that war's black annals hold,The darkest, foulest still remains untold;New modes of torture wait the shameful strife,And Britain wantons in the waste of life.
Cold-blooded Cruelty, first fiend of hell,Ah think no more with savage hordes to dwell;Quit the Caribian tribes who eat their slain,Fly that grim gang, the Inquisitors of Spain,Boast not thy deeds in Moloch's shrines of old,Leave Barbary's pirates to their blood-bought gold,Let Holland steal her victims, force them o'erTo toils and death on Java's morbid shore;Some cloak, some color all these crimes may plead;Tis avarice, passion, blind religion's deed;But Britons here, in this fraternal broil,Grave, cool, deliberate in thy service toil.Far from the nation's eye, whose nobler soulTheir wars would humanize, their pride control,They lose the lessons that her laws impart,And change the British for the brutal heart.Fired by no passion, madden'd by no zeal,No priest, no Plutus bids them not to feel;Unpaid, gratuitous, on torture bent,Their sport is death, their pastime to torment;All other gods they scorn, but bow the knee,And curb, well pleased, O Cruelty, to thee.
Come then, curst goddess, where thy votaries reign,Inhale their incense from the land and main;Come to Newyork, their conquering arms to greet,Brood o'er their camp and breathe along their fleet;The brother chiefs of Howe's illustrious nameDemand thy labors to complete their fame.What shrieks of agony thy praises sound!What grateless dungeons groan beneath the ground!See the black Prison Ship's expanding wombImpested thousands, quick and dead, entomb.Barks after barks the captured seamen bear,Transboard and lodge thy silent victims there;A hundred scows, from all the neighboring shore,Spread the dull sail and ply the constant oar,Waft wrecks of armies from the well fought field,And famisht garrisons who bravely yield;They mount the hulk, and, cramm'd within the cave,Hail their last house, their living, floating grave.
She comes, the Fiend! her grinning jaws expand,Her brazen eyes cast lightning o'er the strand,Her wings like thunder-clouds the welkin sweep,Brush the tall spires and shade the shuddering deep;She gains the deck, displays her wonted store,Her cords and scourges wet with prisoners' gore;Gripes, pincers, thumb-screws spread beneath her feet,Slow poisonous drugs and loads of putrid meat;Disease hangs drizzling from her slimy locks,And hot contagion issues from her box.
O'er the closed hatches ere she takes her place,She moves the massy planks a little space,Opes a small passage to the cries below,That feast her soul on messages of woe;There sits with gaping ear and changeless eye,Drinks every groan and treasures every sigh,Sustains the faint, their miseries to prolong,Revives the dying and unnerves the strong.
But as the infected mass resign their breath.She keeps with joy the register of death.As tost thro portholes from the encumber'd cave,Corpse after corpse fall dashing in the wave;Corpse after corpse, for days and months and years,The tide bears off, and still its current clears;At last, o'erloaded with the putrid gore,The slime-clad waters thicken round the shore.Green Ocean's self, that oft his wave renews,That drinks whole fleets with all their battling crews,That laves, that purifies the earth and sky,Yet ne'er before resign'd his natural dye,Here purples, blushes for the race he boreTo rob and ravage this unconquer'd shore;The scaly nations, as they travel by,Catch the contagion, sicken, gasp and die.
Now Hesper turns the Hero's tearful eyeTo other fields where other standards fly;For here constrain'd new warfare to disclose,And show the feats of more than mortal foes,Where interposing with celestial might,His own dread labors must decide the fight,He bids the scene with pomp unusual rise,To teach Columbus how to read the skies.
He marks the trace of Howe's triumphant course,And wheels o'er Jersey plains his gathering force;Where dauntless Washington, begirt with foes,Still greater rises as the danger grows,And wearied troops, o'er kindred warriors slain,Attend his march thro many a sanguine plain.
From Hudson's bank to Trenton's wintry strand,He guards in firm retreat his feeble band;Britons by thousands on his flanks advance,Bend o'er his rear and point the lifted lance.Past Delaware's frozen stream, with scanty force,He checks retreat; then turning back his course,Remounts the wave, and thro the mingled roarOf ice and storm reseeks the hostile shore,Wrapt in the gloom of night. The offended FloodStarts from his cave, assumes the indignant god,Rears thro the parting tide his foamy form,And with his fiery eyeballs lights the storm.He stares around him on the host he heard,Clears his choked urn and smooths his icy beard,And thus: Audacious chief, this troubled waveTempt not; or tempting, here shall gape thy grave.Is nothing sacred to thy venturous might?The howling storm, the holy truce of night,High tossing ice-isles crashing round thy side,Insidious rocks that pierce the tumbling tide?Fear then this forceful arm, and hear once more,Death stands between thee and that shelvy shore.
The chief beholds the god, and notes his cry,But onward drives, nor pauses to reply;Calls to each bark, and spirits every hostTo toil, gain, tempt the interdicted coast.The crews, regardless of the doubling roar,Breast the strong helm, and wrestle with the oar,Stem with resurgent prow the struggling spray,And with phosphoric lanterns shape their way.
The god perceived his warning words were vain,And rose more furious to assert his reign,Lash'd up a loftier surge, and heaved on highA ridge of billows that obstruct the sky;And, as the accumulated mass he rolls,Bares the sharp rocks and lifts the gaping shoals.Forward the fearless barges plunge and bound,Top the curl'd wave, or grind the flinty ground,Careen, whirl, right, and sidelong dasht and tost,Now seem to reach and now to lose the coast.
Still unsubdued the sea-drench'd army toils,Each buoyant skiff the flouncing godhead foils;He raves and roars, and in delirious woeCalls to his aid his ancient hoary foe,Almighty Frost; when thus the vanquish'd FloodBespeaks in haste the great earth-rending god:Father of storms! behold this mortal raceConfound my force and brave me to my face.Not all my waves by all my tempests driven,Nor black night brooding o'er the starless heaven,Can check their course; they toss and plunge amain,And lo, my guardian rocks project their points in vain.
Come to my help, and with thy stiffening breathClog their strain'd helms, distend their limbs indeath.Tho ancient enmity our realms divide,And oft thy chains arrest my laboring tide,Let strong necessity our cause combine,Thy own disgrace anticipate in mine;Even now their oars thy sleet in vain congeals,Thy crumbling ice-cakes crash beneath their keels;Their impious arms already cope with ours,And mortal man defies immortal Powers.
Roused at the call, the Monarch mounts the storm;In muriat flakes he robes his nitrous form,Glares thro the compound, all its blast inhales,And seas turn crystal where he breathes his gales.He comes careering o'er his bleak domain,But comes untended by his usual train;Hail, sleet and snow-rack far behind him fly,Too weak to wade thro this petrific sky,Whose air consolidates and cuts and stings,And shakes hoar tinsel from its flickering wings.Earth heaves and cracks beneath the alighting god;He gains the pass, bestrides the roaring flood,Shoots from his nostrils one wide withering sheetOf treasured meteors on the struggling fleet;The waves conglaciate instant, fix in air,Stand like a ridge of rocks, and shiver there.The barks, confounded in their headlong surge,Or wedged in crystal, cease their oars to urge;Some with prone prow, as plunging down the deep,And some remounting o'er the slippery steepSeem laboring still, but moveless, lifeless all;And the chill'd army here awaits its fall.
But Hesper, guardian of Hesperia's right,From his far heaven looks thro the rayless night;And, stung to vengeance at the unequal strife,To save her host, in jeopardy of life,Starts from his throne, ascends his flamy car.And turns tremendous to the field of war.His wheels, resurging from the depth of even,Roll back the night, streak wide the startled heaven,Regain their easting with reverted gyres,And stud their path with scintillating fires.He cleaves the clouds; and, swift as beams of day,O'er California sweeps his splendid way;Missouri's mountains at his passage nod,And now sad Delaware feels the present god,And trembles at his tread. For here to fightRush two dread Powers of such unmeasured might,As threats to annihilate his doubtful reign,Convulse the heaven and mingle earth and main.
Frost views his brilliant foe with scornful eye,And whirls a tenfold tempest thro the sky;Where each fine atom of the immense of air,Steel'd, pointed, barb'd for unexampled war,Sings o'er the shuddering ground; when thus he brokeContemptuous silence, and to Hesper spoke:Thou comest in time to share their last disgrace,To change to crystal with thy rebel race,Stretch thy huge corse o'er Delaware's bank afar,And learn the force of elemental war.Or if undying life thy lamp inspire,Take that one blast and to thy sky retire;There, roll'd eternal round the heavens, proclaimThy own disaster and my deathless fame.
I come, said Hesper, not to insult the brave,But break thy sceptre and let loose my wave,Teach the proud Stream more peaceful tides to roll,And send thee howling to thy stormy pole;That drear dominion shall thy rage confine;This land, these waters and those troops are mine.
He added not; and now the sable storm,Pierced by strong splendor, burst before his form;His visage stern an awful lustre shed,His pearly planet play'd around his head.He seized a lofty pine, whose roots of yoreStruck deep in earth, to guard the sandy shoreFrom hostile ravage of the mining tide,That rakes with spoils of earth its crumbling side.He wrencht it from the soil, and o'er the foeWhirl'd the strong trunk, and aim'd a sweeping blow,That sung thro air, but miss'd the moving god,And fell wide crashing on the frozen flood.For many a rood the shivering ice it tore,Loosed every bark and shook the sounding shore;Stroke after stroke with doubling force he plied,Foil'd the hoar Fiend and pulverized the tide.The baffled tyrant quits the desperate cause;From Hesper's heat the river swells and thaws,The fleet rolls gently to the Jersey coast,And morning splendors greet the landing host.
Tis here dread Washington, when first the dayO'er Trenton beam'd to light his rapid way,Pour'd the rude shock on Britain's vanguard train,And led whole squadrons in his captive chain;Where veteran troops to half their numbers yield,Tread back their steps, or press the sanguine field,To Princeton plains precipitate their flight,Thro new disasters and unfinish'd fight,Resign their conquests by one sad surprise,Sink in their pride and see their rivals rise.
Here dawn'd the daystar of Hesperia's fame,Here herald glory first emblazed her name;On Delaware's bank her base of empire stands,The work of Washington's immortal hands;Prompt at his side while gallant Mercer trod,And seal'd the firm foundation with his blood.
In future years, if right the Muse divine,Some great memorial on this bank shall shine;A column bold its granite shaft shall rear,Swell o'er the strand and check the passing air,Cast its broad image on the watery glade,And Bristol greet the monumental shade;Eternal emblem of that gloomy hour,When the great general left her storm-beat shore,To tempest, night and his own sword consign'dHis country's fates, the fortunes of mankind.
Where sealike Laurence, rolling in his pride,With Ocean's self disputes the tossing tide,From shore to shore, thro dim distending skies,Beneath full sails imbanded nations rise.Britain and Brunswick here their flags unfold,Here Hessia's hordes, for toils of slaughter sold,Anspach and Darmstadt swell the hireling train,Proud Caledonia crowds the masted main,Hibernian kerns and Hanoverian slavesMove o'er the decks and darken wide the waves.
Tall on the boldest bark superior shoneA warrior ensign'd with a various crown;Myrtles and laurels equal honors join'd,Which arms had purchased and the Muses twined;His sword waved forward, and his ardent eyeSeem'd sharing empires in the southern sky.Beside him rose a herald to proclaimHis various honors, titles, feats and fame;Who raised an opening scroll, where proudly shoneBurgoyne and vengeance from the British throne.
Champlain receives the congregated host,And his husht waves beneath the sails are lost;Ticonderoga rears his rocks in vain,Nor Edward's walls the weighty shock sustain;Deep George's loaded lake reluctant guidesTheir bounding barges o'er his sacred tides.State after state the splendid pomp appalls,Each town surrenders, every fortress falls;Sinclair retires; and with his feeble train,In slow retreat o'er many a fatal plain,Allures their march; wide moves their furious force,And flaming hamlets mark their wasting course;Thro fortless realms their spreading ranks are wheel'd,On Mohawk's wrestern wave, on Bennington's dread field.
At last where Hudson, with majestic pace,Swells at the sight, and checks his rapid race,Thro dark Stillwater slow and silent moves,And flying troops with sullen pause reproves,A few firm bands their starry standard rear,Wheel, front and face the desolating war.Sudden the patriot flame each province warms,Deep danger calls, the freemen quit their farms,Seize their tried muskets, name their chiefs to lead,Endorse their knapsacks and to vengeance speed.O'er all the land the kindling ardor flies,Troop follows troop, and flags on flags arise,Concentred, train'd, their forming files unite,Swell into squadrons and demand the fight.
When Xerxes, raving at his sire's disgrace,Pour'd his dark millions on the coast of Thrace,O'er groaning Hellespont his broad bridge hurl'd,Hew'd ponderous Athos from the trembling world,Still'd with his weight of ships the struggling main,And bound the billows in his boasted chain,Wide o'er proud Macedon he wheel'd his course,Thrace, Thebes, Thessalia join'd his furious force.Thro six torn states his hovering swarms increase,And hang tremendous on the skirts of Greece;Deep groan the shrines of all her guardian gods,Sad Pelion shakes, divine Olympus nods,Shock'd Ossa sheds his hundred hills of snow,And Tempe swells her murmuring brook below;Wild in her starts of rage the Pythian shrieks,Dodona's Oak the pangs of nature speaks,Eleusis quakes thro all her mystic caves,And black Trophonius gapes a thousand graves.But soon the freeborn Greeks to vengeance rise,Brave Sparta springs where first the danger lies,Her self-devoted Band, in one steel'd mass,Plunge in the gorge of death, and choke the Pass,Athenian youths, the unwieldy war to meet,Couch the stiff lance, or mount the well arm'd fleet;They sweep the incumber'd seas of their vast load,And fat their fields with lakes of Asian blood.
So leapt our youths to meet the invading hordes,Fame fired their courage, freedom edged their swords.Gates in their van on high-hill'd Bemus rose,Waved his blue steel and dared the headlong foes;Undaunted Lincoln, laboring on his right,Urged every arm, and gave them hearts to fight;Starke, at the dexter flank, the onset claims,Indignant Herkimer the left inflames;He bounds exulting to commence the strife.And buy the victory with his barter'd life.
And why, sweet Minstrel, from the harp of fameWithhold so long that once resounding name?The chief who, steering by the boreal star,O'er wild Canadia led our infant war,In desperate straits superior powers display'd,Burgoyne's dread scourge, Montgomery's ablest aid;Ridgefield and Compo saw his valorous mightWith ill-arm'd swains put veteran troops to flight.Tho treason foul hath since absorb'd his soul,Bade waves of dark oblivion round him roll,Sunk his proud heart abhorrent and abhorr'd,Effaced his memory and defiled his sword;Yet then untarnisht roll'd his conquering car;Then famed and foremost in the ranks of warBrave Arnold trod; high valor warm'd his breast,And beams of glory play'd around his crest.Here toils the chief; whole armies from his eyeResume their souls, and swift to combat fly.
Camp'd on a hundred hills, and trench'd in form,Burgoyne's long legions view the gathering storm;Uncounted nations round their general stand,And wait the signal from his guiding hand.Canadia crowds her Gallic colons there,Ontario's yelling tribes torment the air,Wild Huron sends his lurking hordes from far,Insidious Mohawk swells the woodland war;Scalpers and ax-men rush from Erie's shore,And Iroquois augments the war whoop roar;While all his ancient troops his train supply,Half Europe's banners waving thro the sky;Deep squadron'd horse support his endless flanks,And park'd artillery frowns behind the ranks.Flush'd with the conquest of a thousand fields,And rich with spoils that all the region yields,They burn with zeal to close the long campaign,And crush Columbia on this final plain.
His fellow chiefs inhale the hero's flame,Nerves of his arm and partners in his fame:Phillips, with treasured thunders poised and wheel'dIn brazen tubes, prepares to rake the field;The trench-tops darken with the sable rows,And, tipt with fire, the waving match-rope glows.There gallant Reidesel in German guise,And Specht and Breyman, prompt for action, rise;His savage hordes the murderous Johnson leads,Files thro the woods and treads the tangled weeds,Shuns open combat, teaches where to run,Skulk, couch the ambush, aim the hunter's gun,Whirl the sly tomahawk, the war whoop sing,Divide the spoils and pack the scalps they bring.
Frazer in quest of glory seeks the field;--False glare of glory, what hast thou to yield?How long, deluding phantom, wilt thou blind,Mislead, debase, unhumanize mankind?Bid the bold youth, his headlong sword who draws,Heed not the object, nor inquire the cause;But seek adventuring, like an errant knight,Wars not his own, gratuitous in fight,Greet the gored field, then plunging thro the fire,Mow down his men, with stupid pride expire,Shed from his closing eyes the finish'd flame,And ask, for all his crimes, a deathless name?And when shall solid glory, pure and bright,Alone inspire us, and our deeds requite?When shall the applause of men their chiefs pursueIn just proportion to the good they do,On virtue's base erect the shrine of fame,Define her empire, and her code proclaim?
Unhappy Frazer! little hast thou weigh'dThe crirneful cause thy valor comes to aid.Far from thy native land, thy sire, thy wife,Love's lisping race that cling about thy life,Thy soul beats high, thy thoughts expanding roamOn battles past, and laurels yet to come:Alas, what laurels? where the lasting gain?A pompous funeral on a desert plain!The cannon's roar, the muffled drums proclaim,In one short blast, thy momentary fame,And some war minister per-hazard readsIn what far field the tool of placemen bleeds.
Brave Heartly strode in youth's o'erweening pride;Housed in the camp he left his blooming bride,The sweet Lucinda; whom her sire from far,On steeds high bounding o'er the waste of war,Had guided thro the lines, and hither led,That fateful morn, the plighted chief to wed.He deem'd, deluded sire! the contest o'er,That routed rebels dared the fight no more;And came to mingle, as the tumult ceased,The victor's triumph with the nuptial feast.They reach'd his tent; when now with loud alarmsThe morn burst forth and roused the camp to arms;Conflicting passions seized the lover's breast,Bright honor call'd, and bright Lucinda prest:--And wilt thou leave me for that clangorous call?Traced I these deserts but to see thee fall?I know thy valorous heart, thy zeal that speedsWhere dangers press and boldest battle bleeds.My father said blest Hymen here should joinWith sacred Love to make Lucinda thine;But other union these dire drums foredoom,The dark dead union of the eternal tomb.On yonder plain, soon sheeted o'er with blood,Our nuptial couch shall prove a crimson clod;For there this night thy livid corse must lie,I'll seek it there, and on that bosom die.Yet go; tis duty calls; but o'er thy headLet this white plume its floating foliage spread;That from the rampart, thro the troubled air,These eyes may trace thee toiling in the war.She fixt the feather on his crest above,Bound with the mystic knot, the knot of love;He parted silent, but in silent prayerBade Love and Hymen guard the timorous fair.
Where Saratoga show'd her champaign side,That Hudson bathed with still untainted tide,The opposing pickets push'd their scouting files,Wheel'd skirmisht, halted, practised all their wiles;Each to mislead, insnare, exhaust their foes,And court the conquest ere the armies close.
Now roll like winged storms the solid lines,The clarion thunders and the battle joins,Thick flames in vollied flashes load the air,And echoing mountains give the noise of war;Sulphureous clouds rise reddening round the height,And veil the skies, and wrap the sounding fight.Soon from the skirts of smoke, where thousands toil,Ranks roll away and into light recoil;Starke pours upon them in a storm of lead;His hosted swains bestrew the field with dead,Pierce with strong bayonets the German reins,Whelm two battalions in their captive chains,Bid Baum, with wounds enfeebled, quit the field,And Breyman next his gushing lifeblood yield.
This Frazer sees, and thither turns his course,Bears down before them with Britannia's force,Wheels a broad column on the victor flank,And springs to vengeance thro the foremost rank.Lincoln, to meet the hero, sweeps the plain;His ready bands the laboring Starke sustain;Host matching host, the doubtful battle burns,And now the Britons, now their foes by turnsRegain the ground; till Frazer feels the forceOf a rude grapeshot in his flouncing horse;Nor knew the chief, till struggling from the fall,That his gored thigh had first received the ball.He sinks expiring on the slippery soil;Shock'd at the sight, his baffled troops recoil;Where Lincoln, pressing with redoubled might,Broke thro their squadrons and confirmed the flight;When this brave leader met a stunning blow,That stopt his progress and avenged the foe.He left the field; but prodigal of life,Unwearied Francis still prolong'd the strife;Till a chance carabine attained his head,And stretch'd the hero mid the vulgar dead.His near companions rush with ardent gait,Swift to revenge, but soon to share his fate;Brown, Adams, Coburn, falling side by side,Drench the chill sod with all their vital tide.
Firm on the west bold Herkimer sustainsThe gather'd shock of all Canadia's trains;Colons and wildmen post their skulkers there,Outflank his pickets and assail his rear,Drive in his distant scouts with hideous blare,And press, on three sides close, the hovering war.Johnson's own shrieks commence the deafening din,Rouse every ambush and the storm begin.A thousand thickets, thro each opening glen,Pour forth their hunters to the chase of men;Trunks of huge trees, and rocks and ravines lendUnnumber'd batteries and their files defend;They fire, they squat, they rise, advance and fly,And yells and groans alternate rend the sky.The well aim'd hatchet cleaves the helmless head,Mute showers of arrows and loud storms of leadRain thick from hands unseen, and sudden flingA deep confusion thro the laboring wing.
But Herkimer undaunted quits the stand,Breaks in loose files his disencumbered band,Wheels on the howling glens each light-arm'd troop,And leads himself where Johnson tones his whoop,Pours thro his copse a well directed fire;The semisavage sees his tribes retire,Then follows thro the brush in full horse speed,And gains the hilltop where the Hurons lead;Here turns his courser; when a grateful sightRecals his stragglers, and restrains his flight.For Herkimer no longer now sustainsThe loss of blood that his faint vitals drains:A ball had pierced him ere he changed his field;The slow sure death his prudence had conceal'd,Till dark derouted foes should yield to flight,And his firm friends could finish well the fight.
Lopt from his horse the hero sinks at last;The Hurons ken him, and with hallooing blastShake the vast wilderness; the tribes aroundDrink with broad ears and swell the rending sound,Rush back to vengeance with tempestuous might,Sweep the long slopes from every neighboring height,Full on their check'd pursuers; who regain,From all their woods, the first contested plain.Here open fight begins; and sure defeatHad forced that column to a swift retreat,But Arnold, toiling thro the distant smoke,Beheld their plight, a small detachment took,Bore down behind them with his field-park loud,And hail'd his grapeshot thro the savage crowd;Strow'd every copse with dead, and chased afarThe affrighted relics from the skirts of war.
But on the centre swells the heaviest charge,The squares develop and the lines enlarge.Here Kosciusko's mantling works conceal'dHis batteries mute, but soon to scour the field;Morgan with all his marksmen flanks the foe,Hull, Brooks and Courtlandt in the vanguard glow;Here gallant Dearborn leads his light-arm'd train,Here Scammel towers, here Silly shakes the plain.
Gates guides the onset with his waving brand,Assigns their task to each unfolding band,Sustains, inspirits, prompts the warrior's rage,Now bids the flank and now the front engage,Points the stern riflers where their slugs to pour,And tells the unmasking batteries when to roar.For here impetuous Powell wheels and veersHis royal guards, his British grenadiers;His Highland broadswords cut their wasting course,His horse-artillery whirls its furious force.Here Specht and Reidesel to battle bringTheir scattering yagers from each folding wing;And here, concentred in tremendous might,Britain's whole park, descending to the fight,Roars thro the ranks; tis Phillips leads the train,And toils and thunders o'er the shuddering plain.
Burgoyne, secure of victory, from his height,Eyes the whole field and orders all the fight,Marks where his veterans plunge their fiercest fire,And where his foes seem halting to retire,Already sees the starry staff give way.And British ensigns gaining on the day;When from the western wing, in steely glare,All-conquering Arnold surged the tide of war.Columbia kindles as her hero comes;Her trump's shrill clangor and her deafening drumsRedoubling sound the charge; they rage, they burn,And hosted Europe trembles in her turn.So when Pelides' absence check'd her fate,All Ilion issued from her guardian gate;Her huddling squadrons like a tempest pour'd,Each man a hero and each dart a sword,Full on retiring Greece tumultuous fall,And Greece reluctant seeks her sheltering wall;But Pelius' son rebounding o'er the plain,Troy backward starts and seeks her towers again.
Arnold's dread falchion, with terrific sway,Rolls on the ranks and rules the doubtful day,Confounds with one wide sweep the astonish'd foes,And bids at last the scene of slaughter close.Pale rout begins, Britannia's broken trainTread back their steps and scatter from the plain,To their strong camp precipitate retire,And wide behind them streams the roaring fire.
Meantime, the skirts of war as Johnson gored,His kindred cannibals desert their lord;They scour the waste for undistinguish'd prey,Howl thro the night the horrors of the day,Scalp every straggler from all parties stray'd,Each wounded wanderer thro the moonlight glade;And while the absent armies give them place,Each camp they plunder and each world disgrace.
One deed shall tell what fame great Albion drawsFrom these auxiliars in her barbarous cause,Lucinda's fate; the tale, ye nations, hear;Eternal ages, trace it with a tear.Long from the rampart, thro the imbattled field,She spied her Heartly where his column wheel'd,Traced him with steadfast eye and tortured breast,That heaved in concert with his dancing crest;And oft, with head advanced and hand outspread,Seem'd from her Love to ward the flying lead;Till, dimm'd by distance and the gathering cloud;At last he vanish'd in the warrior crowd.She thought he fell; and wild with fearless air,She left the camp to brave the woodland war,Made a long circuit, all her friends to shun,And wander'd wide beneath the falling sun;Then veering to the field, the pickets past,To gain the hillock where she miss'd him last.Fond maid, he rests not there; from finish'd fightHe sought the camp, and closed the rear of flight.
He hurries to his tent;--oh rage! despair!No glimpse, no tidings of the frantic fair;Save that some carmen, as acamp they drove,Had seen her coursing for the western grove.Faint with fatigue and choked with burning thirst,Forth from his friends with bounding leap he burst,Vaults o'er the palisade with eyes on flame,And fills the welkin with Lucinda's name,Swift thro the wild wood paths phrenetic springs,--Lucind! Lucinda! thro the wild wood rings.All night he wanders; barking wolves aloneAnd screaming night-birds answer to his moan;For war had roused them from their savage den;They scent the field, they snuff the walks of men.
The fair one too, of every aid forlorn,Had raved and wander'd, till officipus mornAwaked the Mohawks from their short repose,To glean the plunder, ere their comrades rose.Two Mohawks met the maid,--historian, hold!--Poor Human Nature! must thy shame be told?Where then that proud preeminence of birth,Thy Moral Sense? the brightest boast of earth.Had but the tiger changed his heart for thine,Could rocks their bowels with that heart combine,Thy tear had gusht, thy hand relieved her pain,And led Lucinda to her lord again.
She starts, with eyes upturn'd and fleeting breath,In their raised axes views her instant death,Spreads her white hands to heaven in frantic prayer,Then runs to grasp their knees, and crouches there.Her hair, half lost along the shrubs she past,Rolls in loose tangles round her lovely waist;Her kerchief torn betrays the globes of snowThat heave responsive to her weight of woe.Does all this eloquence suspend the knife?Does no superior bribe contest her life?There does: the scalps by British gold are paid;A long-hair'd scalp adorns that heavenly head;Arid comes the sacred spoil from friend or foe,No marks distinguish, and no man can know.
With calculating pause and demon grin,They seize her hands, and thro her face divineDrive the descending ax; the shriek she sentAttain'd her lover's ear; he thither bentWith all the speed his wearied limbs could yield,Whirl'd his keen blade, and stretch'd upon the fieldThe yelling fiends; who there disputing stoodHer gory scalp, their horrid prize of blood.He sunk delirious on her lifeless clay,And past, in starts of sense, the dreadful day.
Are these thy trophies, Carleton! these the swordsThy hand unsheath'd and gave the savage hordes,Thy boasted friends, by treaties brought from far,To aid thy master in his murderous war?
But now Britannia's chief, with proud disdainCoop'd in his camp, demands the field again.Back to their fate his splendid host he drew,Swell'd high their rage, and led the charge anew;Again the batteries roar, the lightnings play,Again they fall, again they roll away;For now Columbia, with rebounding might,Foil'd quick their columns, but confined their flight.Her wings, like fierce tornados, gyring ran,Crusht their wide flanks and gain'd their flying van;Here Arnold charged; the hero storm'd and pour'dA thousand thunders where he turn'No pause, no parley; onward far he fray'd,Dispersed whole squadrons every bound he made,Broke thro their rampart, seized theircampand storesAnd pluck'd the standard from their broken towers.
Aghast, confounded in the midway field,They drop their arms; the banded nations yield.When sad Burgoyne, in one disastrous day,Sees future crowns and former wreaths decay,His banners furl'd, his long battalions wheel'dTo pile their muskets on the battle field;While two pacific armies shade one plain,The mighty victors and the captive train.
.
Coast of France rises in vision. Louis, to humble the British power, forms an alliance with the American states. This brings France, Spain and Holland into the war, and rouses Hyder Ally to attack the English in India. The vision returns to America, where the military operations continue with various success. Battle of Monmouth. Storming of Stonypoint by Wayne. Actions of Lincoln, and surrender of Charleston. Movements of Cornwallis. Actions of Greene, and battle of Eutaw. French army arrives, and joins the American. They march to besiege the English army of Cornwallis in York and Gloster. Naval battle of Degrasse and Graves. Two of their ships grappled and blown up. Progress of the siege. A citadel mined and blown up. Capture of Cornwallis and his army. Their banners furled and muskets piled on the field of battle.
Thus view'd the Pair; when lo, in eastern skies,From glooms unfolding, Gallia's coasts arise.Bright o'er the scenes of state a golden throne,Instarr'd with gems and hung with purple, shone;Young Bourbon there in royal splendor sat,And fleets and moving armies round him wait.For now the contest, with increased alarms,Fill'd every court and roused the world to arms;As Hesper's hand, that light from darkness brings,And good to nations from the scourge of kings,In this dread hour bade broader beams unfold,And the new world illuminate the old.
In Europe's realms a school of sages traceThe expanding dawn that waits the Reasoning Race;On the bright Occident they fix their eyes,Thro glorious toils where struggling nations rise;Where each firm deed, each new illustrious nameCalls into light a field of nobler fame:A field that feeds their hope, confirms the planOf well poized freedom and the weal of man.They scheme, they theorize, expand their scope,Glance o'er Hesperia to her utmost cope;Where streams unknown for other oceans stray,Where suns unseen their waste of beams display,Where sires of unborn nations claim their birth,And ask their empires in those wilds of earth.While round all eastern climes, with painful eye,In slavery sunk they see the kingdoms lie,Whole states exhausted to enrich a throne,Their fruits untasted and their rights unknown;Thro tears of grief that speak the well taught mind,They hail the æra that relieves mankind.
Of these the first, the Gallic sages stand,And urge their king to lift an aiding hand.The cause of humankind their souls inspired,Columbia's wrongs their indignation fired;To share her fateful deeds their counsel moved,To base in practice what in theme they proved:That no proud privilege from birth can spring,No right divine, nor compact form a king;That in the people dwells the sovereign sway,Who rule by proxy, by themselves obey;That virtues, talents are the test of awe,And Equal Rights the only source of law.Surrounding heroes wait the monarch's word,In foreign fields to draw the patriot sword,Prepared with joy to join those infant powers,Who build republics on the western shores.
By honest guile the royal ear they bend,And lure him on, blest Freedom to defend;That, once recognised, once establisht there,The world might learn her profer'd boon to share.But artful arguments their plan disguise,Garb'd in the gloss that suits a monarch's eyes.By arms to humble Britain's haughty power,From her to sever that extended shore,Contents his utmost wish. For this he lendsHis powerful aid, and calls the opprest his friends.The league proposed, he lifts his arm to save,And speaks the borrow'd language of the brave:
Ye states of France, and ye of rising nameWho work those distant miracles of fame,Hear and attend; let heaven the witness bear,We wed the cause, we join the righteous war.Let leagues eternal bind each friendly land,Given by our voice, and stablisht by our hand;Let that brave people fix their infant sway,And spread their blessings with the bounds of day.Yet know, ye nations; hear, ye Powers above,Our purposed aid no views of conquest move;In that young world revives no ancient claimOf regions peopled by the Gallic name;Our envied bounds, already stretch'd afar,Nor ask the sword, nor fear encroaching war;But virtue, coping with the tyrant powerThat drenches earth in her best children's gore,With nature's foes bids former compact cease;We war reluctant, and our wish is peace;For man's whole race the sword of France we draw;Such is our will, and let our will be law.
He spoke; his moving armies veil'd the plain,His fleets rode bounding on the western main;O'er lands and seas the loud applauses rung,And war and union dwelt on every tongue.
The other Bourbon caught the splendid strain,To Gallia's arms he joins the powers of Spain;Their sails assemble; Crillon lifts the sword,Minorca bows and owns her ancient lord.But while dread Elliott shakes the Midland wave,They strive in vain the Calpian rock to brave.Batavia's states with equal speed prepareThro western isles to meet the naval war;For Albion there rakes rude the tortured main,And foils the force of Holland, France and Spain.
Where old Indostan still perfumes the skies,To furious strife his ardent myriads rise;Fierce Hyder there, unconquerably bold,Bids a new flag its horned moons unfold,Spreads o'er Carnatic kings his splendid force,And checks the Britons in their waiting course.
Europe's pacific powers their counsels join,The laws of trade to settle and define.The imperial Moscovite around him drawsEach Baltic state to join the righteous cause;Whose arm'd Neutrality the way preparesTo check the ravages of future wars;Till by degrees the wasting sword shall cease,And commerce lead to universal peace.
Thus all the ancient world with anxious eyesEnjoy the lights that gild Atlantic skies,Wake to new life, assume a borrow'd flame,Enlarge the lustre and partake the fame.So mounts of ice, that polar heavens invade,Tho piled unseen thro night's long wintry shade.When morn at last illumes their glaring throne,Give back the day and imitate the sun.
But still Columbus, on his war-beat shore,Sees Albion's fleets her new battalions pour;The states unconquer'd still their terrors wield,And stain with mingled gore the embattled field.On Pennsylvania's various plains they move,And adverse armies equal slaughter prove;Columbia mourns her Nash in combat slain,Britons around him press the gory plain;Skirmish and cannonade and distant fireEach power diminish and each nation tire.Till Howe from fruitless toil demands repose,And leaves despairing in a land of foesHis wearied host; who now, to reach their fleet,O'er Jersey hills commence their long retreat,Tread back the steps their chief had led before,And ask in vain the late abandon'd shore,Where Hudson meets, the main; for on their rearColumbia moves; and checks their swift career.
But where green Monmouth lifts his grassy height,They halt, they face, they dare the coming fight.Howe's proud successor, Clinton, hosting there,To tempt once more the desperate chance of war,Towers at their head, in hopes to work relief,And mend the errors of his former chief.Here shines his day; and here with loud acclaimBegins and ends his little task of fame.He vaults before them with his balanced blade,Wheels the bright van, and forms the long parade;Where Britons, Hessians crowd the glittering field,And all their powers for ready combat wield.As the dim sun, beneath the skirts of even,Crimsons the clouds that sail the western heaven;So, in red wavy rows, where spread the trainOf men and standards, shone the fateful plain.
They shone, till Washington obscured their light,And his long ranks roll'd forward to the fight.He points the charge; the mounted thunders roar,And rake the champaign to the distant shore.Above the folds of smoke that veil the war,His guiding sword illumes the fields of air;And vollied flames, bright bursting o'er the plain,Break the brown clouds, discovering far the slain:Till flight begins; the smoke is roll'd away,And the red standards open into day.Britons and Germans hurry from the field,Now wrapt in dust, and now to sight reveal'd;Behind, swift Washington his falchion drives,Thins the pale ranks, but saves submissive lives.Hosts captive bow and move behind his arm,And hosts before him wing the sounding storm;When the glad sea salutes their fainting sight,And Albion's fleet wide thundering aids their flight;They steer to sad Newyork their hasty way,And rue the toils of Monmouth's mournful day.
But Hudson still, with his interior tide,Laves a rude rock that bears Britannia's pride,Swells round the headland with indignant roar,And mocks her thunders from his murmuring shore;When a firm cohort starts from Peekskill plain,To crush the invaders and the post regain.Here, gallant Hull, again thy sword is tried,Meigs, Fleury, Butler, laboring side by side,Wayne takes the guidance, culls the vigorous band,Strikes out the flint, and bids the nervous handTrust the mute bayonet and midnight skies,To stretch o'er craggy walls the dark surprise.With axes, handspikes on the shoulder hung,And the sly watchword whisper'd from the tongue,Thro different paths the silent march they take,Plunge, climb the ditch, the palisado break,Secure each sentinel, each picket shun,Grope the dim postern where the byways run.Soon the roused garrison perceives its plight;Small time to rally and no means of flight,They spring confused to every post they know,Point their poized cannon where they hear the foe,Streak the dark welkin with the flames they pour,And rock the mountain with convulsive roar.
The swift assailants still no fire return,But, tow'rd the batteries that above them burn,Climb hard from crag to crag; and scaling higherThey pierce the long dense canopy of fireThat sheeted all the sky; then rush amain,Storm every outwork, each dread summit gain,Hew timber'd gates, the sullen drawbridge fall,File thro and form within the sounding wall.The Britons strike their flag, the fort forgo,Descend sad prisoners to the plain below.A thousand veterans, ere the morning rose,Received their handcuffs from five hundred foes;And Stonypoint beheld, with dawning day,His own starr'd standard on his rampart play.
From sack'd Savanna, whelm'd in hostile fires,A few raw troops brave Lincoln now retires; 2lWith rapid march to suffering Charleston goes,To meet the myriads of concentring foes,Who shade the pointed strand. Each fluvial floodTheir gathering fleets and floating batteries load,Close their black sails, debark the amphibious host,And with their moony anchors fang the coast.
The bold beleaguer'd post the hero gains,And the hard siege with various fate sustains.Cornwallis, towering at the British van,In these fierce toils his wild career began;He mounts the forky streams, and soon bestridesThe narrow neck that parts converging tides,Sinks the deep trench, erects the mantling tower,Lines with strong forts the desolated shore,Hems on all sides the long unsuccour'd place,With mines and parallels contracts the space;Then bids the battering floats his labors crown,And pour their bombard on the shuddering town.
High from the decks the mortar's bursting firesSweep the full streets, and splinter down the spires.Blaze-trailing fuses vault the night's dim round,And shells and langrage lacerate the ground;Till all the tented plain, where heroes tread,Is torn with crags and cover'd with the dead.Each shower of flames renews the townsmen's woe,They wail the fight, they dread the cruel foe.Matrons in crowds, while tears bedew their charms,Babes at their sides and infants in their arms,Press round their Lincoln and his hand implore,To save them trembling from the tyrant's power.He shares their anguish with a moistening eye,And bids the balls rain thicker thro the sky;Tries every aid that art and valor yield,The sap, the countermine, the battling field,The bold sortie, by famine urged afar,That dreadful daughter of earth-wasting War.But vain the conflict now; on all the shoreThe foes in fresh brigades around him pour;He yields at last the well contested prize,And freedom's banners quit the southern skies.
The victor Britons soon the champaign tread,And far anorth their fire and slaughter spread;Thro fortless realms, where unarm'd peasants fly,Cornwallis bears his bloody standard high;O'er Carolina rolls his growing force,And thousands fall and thousands aid his course;While in his march athwart the wide domain,Colonial dastards join his splendid train.So mountain streams thro slopes of melting snowSwell their foul waves and flood the world below.
Awhile the Patriarch saw, with heaving sighs,These crimson flags insult the saddening skies,Saw desolation whelm his favorite coast,His children scattered and their vigor lost,Dekalb in furious combat press the plain,Morgan and Smallwood every shock sustain,Gates, now no more triumphant, quit the field,Indignant Davidson his lifeblood yield,Blount, Gregory, Williamson, with souls of fireBut slender force, from hill to hill retire;When Greene in lonely greatness takes the ground,And bids at last the trump of vengeance sound.
A few firm patriots to the chief repair,Raise the star standard and demand the war.But o'er the regions as he turns his eyes,What foes develop! and what forts arise!Rawdon with rapid marches leads their course,From state to state Cornwallis whirls their force,Impetuous Tarleton like a torrent pours,And fresh battalions land along the shores;Where, now resurgent from his captive chain,Phillips wide storming shakes the field again;And traitor Arnold, lured by plunder o'er,Joins the proud powers his valor foil'd before.
Greene views the tempest with collected soul,Arid fates of empires in his bosom roll;So small his force, where shall he lift the steel?(Superior hosts o'er every canton wheel)Or how behold their wanton carnage spread,Himself stand idle and his country bleed?Fixt in a moment's pause the general stood,And held his warriors from the field of blood;Then points the British legions where to steer,Marks to their chief a rapid wild career,Wide o'er Virginia lets him foeless roam,To search for pillage and to find his doom,With short-lived glory feeds his sateless flame,But leaves the victory to a nobler name,Gives to great Washington to meet his way,Nor claims the honors of so bright a day.
Now to the conquer'd south he turns his force,Renerves the nation by his rapid course;Forts fall around him, hosts before him fly,And captive bands his growing train supply;A hundred leagues of coast, in one campaign,Return reconquer'd to their lords again.At last Britannia's vanguard, near the strand,Veers on her foe to make one vigorous stand.Her gallant Stuart here amass'd from farThe veteran legions of the Georgian war,To aid her hard-pusht powers, and quick restoreThe British name to that extended shore.He checks their flight, and chooses well their field,Flank'd with a marsh, by lofty woods concealed;Where Eutaw's fountains, tinged of old with gore,Still murmuring swell'd amid the bones they bore,Destined again to foul their pebbly stream,The mournful monuments of human fame;There Albion's columns, ranged in order bright,Stand like a fiery wall and wait the shock of fight.
Swift on the neighboring hill as Greene arose,He view'd, with rapid glance, the glittering foes,Disposed for combat all his ardent train,To charge, change front, each echelon sustain;Roused well their rage, superior force to prove,Waved his bright blade and bade the onset move.As hovering clouds, when morning beams arise,Hang their red curtains round our eastern skies,Unfold a space to hail the promised sun,And catch their splendors from his rising throne;Thus glow'd the opposing fronts, whose steely glareGlanced o'er the shuddering interval of war.
From Albion's left the cannonade began,And pour'd thick thunders on Hesperia's van,Forced in her dexter guards, that skirmisht wideTo prove what powers the forest hills might hide;They break, fall back, with measured quickstep tread,Form close, and flank the solid squares they led.Now roll, with kindling haste, the long stark lines,From wing to wing the sounding battle joins;Batteries and field-parks and platoons of fire,In mingled shocks their roaring blasts exspire.Each front approaching fast, with equal pace,Devours undaunted their dividing space;Till, dark beneath the smoke, the meeting ranksSlope their strong bayonets, with short firm shanksProtruded from their tubes; each bristling van,Steel fronting steel, and man encountering man,In dreadful silence tread. As, wrapt from sight,The nightly ambush moves to secret fight;So rush the raging files, and sightless closeIn plunging thrust with fierce conflicting foes.They reach, they strike, they stagger o'er the slain,Deal doubtful blows, or closing clench their man,Intwine their twisting limbs, the gun forgo,Wrench off the bayonet and dirk the foe;Then struggling back, reseize the musket bare,Club the broad breech, and headlong whirl to warRanks crush on ranks with equal slaughter gored;Warm dripping streams from every lifted swordStain the thin carnaged corps who still maintain,With mutual shocks, the vengeance of the plain.At last where Williams fought and Campbell fell,Unwonted strokes the British line repel.The rout begins; the shattered wings afarRoll back in haste and scatter from the war;They drop their arms, they scour the marshy field,Whole squadrons fall and faint battalions yield.
The great Observer, fixt in his midsky,View'd the whole combat, saw them fall and fly:He mark'd where Greene with every onset drove,Saw death and victory with his presence move,Beneath his arm saw Marion, Sumter, Gaine,Pickens and Sumner shake the astonish'd plain;He saw young Washington, the child of fame,Preserve in fight the honors of his name.Lee, Jackson, Hampton, Pinckney, matcht in might,Roll'd on the storm and hurried fast the flight:While numerous chiefs, that equal trophies raise,Wrought, not unseen, the deeds of deathless praise.
As Europe now the newborn states beheldThe shock sustain of many a hard-fought field;Swift o'er the main, with high-spread sails, advanceOur brave auxiliars from the coast of France.On the tall decks their curious chiefs explore,With optic tube, our camp-encumber'd shore;And, as the lessening wave behind them flies,Wide scenes of conflict open on their eyes.Rochambeau foremost with his gleamy brandPoints to each field and singles every band,Sees Washington the power of nations guide,And longs to toil and conquer by his side.Two brother chiefs, Viominil the name,Brothers in birth but twins in generous fame,Behold with steadfast eye the plains disclose,Uncase their arms and claim the promised foes.Biron, beneath his sail, in armor bright,Frown'd o'er the wave impatient for the fight;A fiery steed beside the hero stood,And his blue blade waved forward o'er the crowd.
With eager haste descending on the coast,Thro the glad states they march their veteran host,From sea-nursed Newport file o'er western roads,Pitch many a camp, and bridge a hundred floods,Pass the full towns, where joyful crowds admireTheir foreign speech, gay mien and gilt attire,Applaud their generous deeds, the zeal that drawsTheir swords untried in freedom's doubtful cause.Thro Hartford plains, on Litchfield hills they gleam,Wave their white flags o'er Hudson's loaded stream,Band after band with Delaware's current pour,Shade Schuylkill's wave and Elk's indented shore,Join their new friends, where allied banners lead,Demand the foe and bid the war proceed.
Again Columbus turn'd his anxious eyeWhere Britain's banner waved along the sky;And, graced with spoils of many fields of blood,Cornwallis boastful on a bulwark stood.Where York and Gloster's rocky towers bestrideTheir parent stream, Virginia's midmost tide,He camp'd his hundred nations, to regainTheir force, exhausted in the long campaign;Paused for a moment on a scene so vast,To plan the future and review the past.Thro vanquisht provinces and towns in flameHe mark'd his recent monuments of fame,His checker'd marches, long and various toils,And camp well stored with wide collected spoils.
High glittering to the sun his hands unfoldA map new drafted on a sheet of gold;There in delusive haste his burin gravedA country conquer'd and a race enslaved.Its middle realm, by fairer figures knownAnd rich with fruits, lay bounded for his own;Deep thro the centre spreads a branching bay,Full sails ascend and golden rivers stray;Bright palaces arise relieved in gold,And gates and streets the crossing lines unfold.James furrows o'er the plate with turgid tide,Young Richmond roughens on his masted side;Reviving Norfolk from her ashes springs,A golden phoenix on refulgent wings;Potowmak's yellow waves reluctant spread,And Vernon rears his rich and radiant head,Tis here the chief his pointed graver stays,The bank to burnish with a purer blaze,Gives all his art, on this bright hill to traceHis future seat and glory of his race;Deems his long line of lords the realm shall own,The kings predestined to Columbia's throne.
But while his mind thus quafft its airy food,And gazing thousands round the rampart stood,Whom future ease and golden dreams employ,The songs of triumph and the feast of joy;Sudden great Washington arose in view,And allied flags his stately steps pursue;Gaul's veteran host and young Hesperia's prideBend the long march concentring at his side,Stream over Chesapeak, like sheets of flame,And drive tempestuous to the field of fame.
Far on the wild expanse, where ocean lies,And scorns all confines but incumbent skies,Scorns to retain the imprinted paths of menTo guide their wanderings or direct their ken;Where warring vagrants, raging as they go,Ask of the stars their way to find the foe,Columbus saw two hovering fleets advance,And rival ensigns o'er their pinions dance.Graves, on the north, with Albion's flag unfurl'd,Waves proud defiance to the watery world;Degrasse, from southern isles, conducts his train,And shades with Gallic sheets the moving main.
Now Morn, unconscious of the coming frayThat soon shall storm the crystal cope of day,Glows o'er the heavens, and with her orient breezeFans her fair face and curls the summer seas.The swelling sails, as far as eye can sweep,Look thro the skies and awe the shadowy deep,Lead their long bending lines; and, ere they close,To count, recognise, circumvent their foes,Each hauls his wind, the weathergage to gainAnd master all the movements of the plain;Or bears before the breeze with loftier gait,And, beam to beam, begins the work of fate.
As when the warring winds, from each far pole,Their adverse storms across the concave roll,Thin fleecy vapors thro the expansion run,Veil the blue vault and tremble o'er the sun,Till the dark folding wings together drive,And, ridged with fire and rock'd with thunder, strive;So, hazing thro the void, at first appearWhite clouds of canvass floating on the air,Then frown the broad black decks, the sails are stay'd,The gaping portholes cast a frightful shade,Flames, triple tier'd, and tides of smoke, arise.And fulminations rock the seas and skies.
From van to rear the roaring deluge runs,The storm disgorging from a thousand guns,Each like a vast volcano, spouting wideHis hissing hell-dogs o'er the shuddering tide,Whirls high his chainshot, cleaves the mast and strewsThe shiver'd fragments on the staggering foes;Whose gunwale sides with iron globes are gored,And a wild storm of splinters sweeps the board.Husht are the winds of heaven; no more the galeBreaks the red rolls of smoke nor flaps the sail;A dark dead calm continuous cloaks the glare,And holds the clouds of sulphur on the war,Convolving o'er the space that yawns and shines,With frequent flash, between the laboring lines.Nor sun nor sea nor skyborn lightning gleams,But flaming Phlegethon's asphaltic steamsStreak the long gaping gulph; where varying glowCarbonic curls above, blue flakes of fire below.
Hither two hostile ships to contact run,Both grappling, board to board and gun to gun;Each thro the adverse ports their contents pour,Rake the lower decks, the interior timbers bore,Drive into chinks the illumined wads unseen,Whose flames approach the unguarded magazine.Above, with shrouds afoul and gunwales mann'd,Thick halberds clash; and, closing hand to hand,The huddling troops, infuriate from despair,Tug at the toils of death, and perish there;Grenados, carcasses their fragments spread,And pikes and pistols strow the decks with dead.Now on the Gallic board the Britons rush,The intrepid Gauls the rash adventurers crush;And now, to vengeance Stung, with frantic air,Back on the British maindeck roll the war.There swells the carnage; all the tar-beat floorIs clogg'd with spatter'd brains and glued with gore;And down the ship's black waist fresh brooks of bloodCourse o'er their clots, and tinge the sable flood.Till War, impatient of the lingering strifeThat tires and slackens with the waste of life,Opes with engulphing gape the astonish'd wave,And whelms the combat whole, in one vast grave.For now the imprison'd powder caught the flames,And into atoms whirl'd the monstrous framesOf both the entangled ships; the vortex wideRoars like an Ætna thro the belching tide,And blazing into heaven, and bursting high,Shells, carriages and guns obstruct the sky;Cords, timbers, trunks of men the welkin sweep,And fall on distant ships, or shower along the deep.
The matcht armadas still the fight maintain,But cautious, distant; lest the staggering mainDrive their whole lines afoul, and one dark dayGlut the proud ocean with too rich a prey.At last, where scattering fires the cloud disclose,Hulls heave in sight and blood the decks o'erflows;Here from the field tost navies rise to view,Drive hack to vengeance and the roar renew,There shatter'd ships commence their flight afar,Tow'd thro the smoke, hard struggling from the war;And some, half seen amid the gaping wave,Plunge in the whirl they make, and gorge their grave.
Soon the dark smoky volumes roll'd away,And a long line ascended into day;The pinions swell'd, Britannia's cross aroseAnd flew the terrors of triumphing foes;When to Virginia's bay, new shocks to brave,The Gallic powers their conquering banners wave.Glad Chesapeak unfolds his bosom wide,And leads their prows to York's contracting tide;Where still dread Washington directs his way,And seas and continents his voice obey;While brave Cornwallis, mid the gathering host,Perceives his glories gone, his promised empire lost.
Columbus here with silent joy beheldHis favorite sons the fates of nations wield.Here joyous Lincoln rose in arms again,Nelson and Knox moved ardent o'er the plain;Scammel alert with force unusual trod,Prepared to seal their victory with his blood;Cobb, Dearborn, Laurens, Tilghman, green in yearsBut ripe in glory, tower'd amid their peers;Death-daring Hamilton with splendor shone,And claim'd each post of danger for his own,Skill'd every arm in war's whole hell to wield,An Ithacus in camp, an Ajax in the field.
Their Gallic friends an equal ardor fires;Brisk emulation every troop inspires:Where Tarleton turns, with hopes of flight elate,Brave Biron moves and drives him back to fate,Hems in his host, to wait, on Gloster plains,Their finish'd labors and their destined chains.