But Colonel, now I’ll tell you, why we’ve risen,
From out of the bosom of the earth’s cold prison ——
We ask of you to pay us one tribute,
By firing from these heights, one last salute.
The grave, sonorous words of the martial request were hardly uttered ere through the darkness of the night, the great cannon boomed out a soldier’s welcome and a brave man’s requiem—causing women’s hearts to throb, and men’s to exult at the warlike sound. While the whole air was trembling with the sullen reverberation and the sky was illuminated with rockets and Roman candles, Colonel Strange responded to his ghostly visitant, in the following original composition: —
’Tis Hugh McQuarters, and his comrades brave,
To-night have risen from their glorious grave ——
To you we owe our standard still unfurled,
Yet flaunts aloft defiance to the world:
God grant in danger’s hour we prove as true,