Grim dashed they away as they bounded,
The hunters to hem in the prey,
And, with Deckard's long rifles surrounded,
Then the British rose fast to the fray;
And never with arms of more vigor
Did their bayonets press through the strife.
Where, with every swift pull of the trigger,
The sharpshooters dashed out a life!
'Twas the meeting of eagles and lions;
'Twas the rushing of tempests and waves;
Insolent triumph 'gainst patriot defiance,
Born freemen 'gainst sycophant slaves;
Scotch Ferguson sounding his whistle,
As from danger to danger he flies.
Feels the moral that lies in Scotch thistle,
With its "touch me who dare" and he dies!
An hour, and the battle is over;
The eagles are rending the prey;
The serpents seek flight into cover,
But the terror still stands in the way:
More dreadful the doom that on treason
Avenges the wrongs of the state;
And the oak-tree for many a season
Bears fruit for the vultures of fate!
William Gilmore Simms.
EUTAW SPRINGS
TO THE MEMORY OF THE BRAVE AMERICANS,
UNDER GENERAL GREENE, IN SOUTH CAROLINA,
WHO FELL IN THE ACTION OF SEPTEMBER 8, 1781,
AT EUTAW SPRINGS.
At Eutaw Springs the valiant died:
Their limbs with dust are covered o'er—
Weep on, ye springs, your tearful tide;
How many heroes are no more!
If in this wreck of ruin they
Can yet be thought to claim a tear,
O smite thy gentle breast, and say
The friends of freedom slumber here!
Thou who shalt trace this bloody plain,
If goodness rules thy generous breast,
Sigh for the wasted, rural reign;
Sigh for the shepherds, sunk to rest!
Stranger, their humble graves adorn;
You too may fall and ask a tear;
'Tis not the beauty of the morn
That proves the evening shall be clear—