And then a wonder in the wood,—
A little rising ground,
With palisade for shelter made
Of timber planted round.
And but one place of entrance there
Across a watery way,
A tall felled tree gave access free,
From shore to shore it lay.
Full many a gallant man that day
His life left at that tree,
The bravest men pressed forward then,
And there fell captains three.
A dreadful day, and of our men
Short work would have been made,
But that by grace they found a place
Weak in the palisade.
Then they poured in, within the fort
Soon filled with Indians dead,
And many a one great deeds had done
Within that place of dread.
Then with a torch the whole was fired,
The wigwams caught the blaze,
The fire roared and spread abroad
And fed on tubs of maize.
The night came on, the governor called,
The soldiers gathered round;
The fort was theirs, and dying prayers
Were rising from the ground.
With care they gathered up their dead,
The few who had been spared,
All through the cold, in pain untold,
To Warwick they repaired.
So was the Indians' power gone,
Avenged were Englishmen,
For from the night of that Swamp fight
They never rose again.
In Narragansett there was peace,
The soldiers went their way,
All that remains are some few grains
Of corn parched on that day.