Unhappy Boston! see thy sons deplore
Thy hallowed walks besmear'd with guiltless gore.
While faithless Preston and his savage bands,
With murderous rancor stretch their bloody hands;
Like fierce barbarians grinning o'er their prey,
Approve the carnage and enjoy the day.
If scalding drops, from rage, from anguish wrung,
If speechless sorrows lab'ring for a tongue,
Or if a weeping world can aught appease
The plaintive ghosts of victims such as these;
The patriot's copious tears for each are shed,
A glorious tribute which embalms the dead.
But know, Fate summons to that awful goal,
Where justice strips the murderer of his soul:
Should venal C——ts, the scandal of the land,
Snatch the relentless villain from her hand,
Keen execrations on this plate inscrib'd
Shall reach a judge who never can be bribed.
Paul Revere.
A conflict of a much more serious nature took place at Alamance, N. C., on May 7, 1771, between a body of colonists, goaded to rebellion by repeated acts of extortion, and a force of British regulars under Governor Tryon. The colonists were totally defeated and left two hundred dead and wounded on the field.
ALAMANCE
[May 7, 1771]
No stately column marks the hallowed place
Where silent sleeps, un-urned, their sacred dust:
The first free martyrs of a glorious race,
Their fame a people's wealth, a nation's trust.
The rustic ploughman at the early morn
The yielding furrow turns with heedless tread,
Or tends with frugal care the springing corn,
Where tyrants conquered and where heroes bled.
Above their rest the golden harvest waves,
The glorious stars stand sentinels on high,
While in sad requiem, near their turfless graves,
The winding river murmurs, mourning, by.
No stern ambition moved them to the deed:
In Freedom's cause they nobly dared to die.
The first to conquer, or the first to bleed,
"God and their country's right" their battle cry.
But holier watchers here their vigils keep
Than storied urn or monumental stone;
For Law and Justice guard their dreamless sleep,
And Plenty smiles above their bloody home.