No More Learning

What's the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle-peal!
Read it on yon bristling steel.
Ask it,--ye who will.

Fear ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you! --they're a-fire!
And, before you, see
Who have done it! --From the vale
On they come! --And will ye quail? --
Leaden rain and iron hail
Let their welcome be!

In the God of battles trust!
Die we may,--and die we must;--
But, O, where can dust to dust
Be consigned so well,
As where Heaven its dews shall shed
On the martyred patriot's bed,
And the rocks shall raise their head,
Of his deeds to tell!





THE OLD CONTINENTALS

GUY HUMPHREY McMASTER

[Sidenote: 1775--1783]
_The nucleus of the Continental Army was the New England force
gathered before Boston, to the command of which Washington had been
appointed two days before the battle of Bunker Hill, although he
arrived too late to take part in that fight.
_

In their ragged regimentals
Stood the old continentals,
Yielding not,
When the grenadiers were lunging,
And like hail fell the plunging
Cannon-shot;
When the files
Of the isles
From the smoky night encampment, bore the banner of the rampant
Unicorn,
And grummer, grummer, grummer rolled the roll of the drummer,
Through the morn!
Then with eyes to the front all,
And with guns horizontal,
Stood our sires;

And the balls whistled deadly,
And in streams flashing redly
Blazed the fires;
As the roar
On the shore,
Swept the strong battle-breakers o'er the green-sodded acres
Of the plain;
And louder, louder, louder cracked the black gunpowder,
Cracking amain!

Now like smiths at their forges
Worked the red St. George's
Cannoneers;
And the "villainous saltpetre"
Rung a fierce, discordant metre
Round their ears;
As the swift
Storm-drift,
With hot sweeping anger, came the horse-guards' clangor
On our flanks.
Then higher, higher, higher burned the old-fashioned fire
Through the ranks!

Then the old-fashioned colonel
Galloped through the white infernal
Powder-cloud;
And his broad-sword was swinging,
And his brazen throat was ringing
Trumpet loud.
Then the blue
Bullets flew,
And the trooper-jackets redden at the touch of the leaden
Rifle-breath;
And rounder, rounder, rounder roared the iron six pounder,
Hurling death!





NATHAN HALE

FRANCIS MILES FINCH

[Sidenote: Sept. 22, 1776]
_After the retreat from Long Island, Washington needed
information as to the British strength. Captain Nathan Hale, a
young man of twenty-one, volunteered to get this. He was taken,
inside the enemy's lines, and hanged as a spy, regretting that he
had but one life to lose for his country. _

To drum-beat and heart-beat,
A soldier marches by:
There is color in his cheek,
There is courage in his eye,
Yet to drum-beat and heart-beat
In a moment he must die.

By starlight and moonlight,
He seeks the Briton's camp;
He hears the rustling flag,
And the armed sentry's tramp;
And the starlight and moonlight
His silent wanderings lamp.

With slow tread and still tread,
He scans the tented line;
And he counts the battery guns
By the gaunt and shadowy pine;
And his slow tread and still tread
Gives no warning sign.

The dark wave, the plumed wave,
It meets his eager glance;
And it sparkles 'neath the stars,
Like the glimmer of a lance--
A dark wave, a plumed wave,
On an emerald expanse.

A sharp clang, a steel clang,
And terror in the sound!