And from heaven's high arch those stars blessed our march,
Till the last of them faded in twilight away;
And with morning's bright beam, by the bank of the stream,
Half the county marched in, and we heard Davis say:
"On the King's own highway I may travel all day,
And no man hath warrant to stop me," says he;
"I've no man that's afraid, and I'll march at their head."
Then he turned to the boys,—"Forward, march! Follow me."
And we marched as he said, and the Fifer he played
The old "White Cockade," and he played it right well.
[We saw Davis fall dead], but no man was afraid;
That bridge we'd have had, though a thousand men fell.
This opened the play, and it lasted all day.
We made Concord too hot for the Red-Coats to stay;
Down the Lexington way we stormed, black, white, and gray;
We were first in the feast, and were last in the fray.
They would turn in dismay, as red wolves turn at bay.
They levelled, they fired, they charged up the road.
Cephas Willard fell dead; he was shot in the head
As he knelt by Aunt Prudence's well-sweep to load.
John Danforth was hit just in Lexington Street,
John Bridge at that lane where you cross Beaver Falls,
And Winch and the Snows just above John Munroe's,—
Swept away by one swoop of the big cannon-balls.
I took Bridge on my knee, but he said, "Don't mind me;
Fill your horn from mine,—let me lie where I be.
Our fathers," says he, "that their sons might be free,
Left their king on his throne, and came over the sea;
And that man is a knave or a fool who, to save
His life for a minute, would live like a slave."
Well, all would not do! There were men good as new,—
From Rumford, from Saugus, from towns far away,—
Who filled up quick and well for each soldier that fell;
And we drove them, and drove them, and drove them, all day.
We knew, every one, it was war that begun,
When that morning's marching was only half done.
In the hazy twilight, at the coming of night,
I crowded three buckshot and one bullet down.
'Twas my last charge of lead; and I aimed her and said,
"Good luck to you, lobsters, in old Boston Town."
In a barn at Milk Row, Ephraim Bates and Munroe
And Baker and Abram and I made a bed.
We had mighty sore feet, and we'd nothing to eat;
But we'd driven the Red-Coats, and Amos, he said:
"It's the first time," says he, "that it's happened to me
To march to the sea by this road where we've come;
But confound this whole day, but we'd all of us say
[We'd rather have spent it this way than to home]."