Then flamed the crater! And the flame took wing;
Furious and far the lava blazed around,
Until at last, on this same spot that King
His Herculaneum found!
Breed's Hill became Vesuvius, and its stream
Rushed forth through years, a God-directed tide
To light two Worlds and realize the dream
For which brave Warren died.
IV.
THE EMBATTLED COLONIES.
Before this thought the present hour recedes,
As from the beach a billow backward rolls,
And the great past, rich in heroic deeds
Illuminates our souls!
Stern Massachusetts Bay uplifts her form,
Boston the tale of Lexington repeats,
With breast unarmored she confronts the storm—
New England England meets.
I see the Middle Group by Fortune made
The bloody Flanders of the Northern Coast,
And, in a varying play of light and shade,
Host thundering fall on host.
I see the Carolinas, Georgia, mowed
By War the Reaper, and grim Ruin stalk
O'er wasted fields;—but Guilford paved the way
That led to this same York.
Here, too, Virginia in the vision comes—
Full-bent to crown the battle's closing arch,
Her pulses trumpets and her heart throbs drums,
To animate her march.
As Pocahontas, in a by-gone time,
Leaped forth the wrath of Powhatan to brave,
Virginia came, and here she stood sublime
To perish, or to save.