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 hand
Points 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 feels
Their sleet-clad oars, choked helms and crusted keels;
They buffet long his tides; when rise in sight
Quebec's dread walls, and Wolfe's unclouded height
Already there a few brave patriots stood,
Worn down with toil, by famine half subdued;
Untrench'd before the town, they dare oppose
Their fielded cohorts to the forted foes.
Ah gallant troop! deprived of half the praise
That 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 flings
The name unsounded from her sacred strings;
Else what high tones of rapture must have told
The 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 far
To 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 red
With 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 wield
Their happier swords in many a broader field.
Triumphant to Newyork's ill forted post
Britannia 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 bay
The 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 afar
On 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 disease
Thins 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'd
The insulted colons to the battling field;
When first their high-soul'd sentiment of right
And 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 forgo
Their 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.
Book VI
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