WARREN'S ADDRESS AT THE BATTLE OF
BUNKER HILL
By John Pierpont
Stand! 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? 5
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? 10
Look behind you! they're afire!
And, before you, see
Who have done it! From the vale
On they come!—and will ye quail?—
Leaden rain and iron hail 15
Let their welcome be!
In the God of battles trust!
Die we may—and die we must;
But, oh, where can dust to dust
Be consigned so well,20
As where heaven its dews shall shed
On the martyred patriot's bed,
And the rocks shall raise their head,
Of his deeds to tell?
WHAT IS AN AMERICAN?
By Hector Saint Jean de Crèvecœur
De Crèvecœur (1731-1813) was a French writer who emigrated to America at the age of twenty-three. He settled on a farm near the City of New York, and came to know many of the great men of his day. For instance, he had the friendship of Washington and Franklin. France appointed him as her consul at New York. In 1782 Crèvecœur published his Letters of an American Farmer. As this extract shows, it is almost prophetic in its insight into the future.