For on his daring spirit
A wrath lay like a spell,—
The wrath of one rewarded ill
For a great work wrought right well.
Neighbor and friend and brother
Flocked to his side in vain,—
"What, can it be that they long for me
To ruin their cause again?
"Surely the northern lights are bright.
Surely the South lies still.
Would they have more?—Lo, I left my sword
On the crest of Bunker Hill."
But at last from his own New Hampshire
An urgent summons came,
That stirred his heart like the voice of God
From Sinai's walls of flame.
He bowed his head, and he rose aloft;
Again he grasped the brand,—
"For the cause of man and my native State,
Not for an ingrate land!"
Through the mist-veil faintly struggling,
The rays of the setting sun
Reddened the leafy village
Of white-walled Bennington.
Then out of the dismal weather
Came many a sound of war,—
The straggling shots and the volleys
And the cries, now near now far.
For forms half seen were chasing
The phantom forms that fled;
And ghostly figures grappled
And spectres fought and bled;
Till the mist on a sudden settled
And they saw before them fair,
Over a hill to the westward,
An island in the air.
There were tree-trunks and waving branches,
And greensward and flowers below;
It rose in a dome of verdure
From the mist-waves' watery flow.