On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
MONTEREY.
We were not many—we who stood
Before the iron sleet that day—
Yet many a gallant spirit would
Give half his years if he but could
Have been with us at Monterey.
Now here, now there, the shot, it hailed
In deadly drifts of fiery spray,
Yet not a single soldier quailed
When wounded comrades round them wailed
Their dying shout at Monterey.
And on—still on our column kept
Through walls of flame its withering way;
Where fell the dead, the living stept,
Still charging on the guns that swept
The slippery streets of Monterey.
The foe himself recoiled aghast,
When, striking where he strongest lay,
We swooped his flanking batteries past
And braving full their murderous blast
Stormed home the towers of Monterey.