No More Learning

In the street I heard a thumping; and I knew it was the stumping
Of the Corporal, our old neighbor, on that wooden leg he wore,
With a knot of women round him,--it was lucky I had found
him,--
So I followed with the others, and the Corporal marched before.

They were making for the steeple,--the old soldier and his people;
The pigeons circled round us as we climbed the creaking stair,
Just across the narrow river--O, so close it made me shiver! --
Stood a fortress on the hilltop that but yesterday was bare.

Not slow our eyes to find it; well we knew who stood behind it,
Though the earthwork hid them from us, and the stubborn
walls were dumb:
Here were sister, wife, and mother, looking wild upon each other,
And their lips were white with terror as they said, THE HOUR
HAS COME!

The morning slowly wasted, not a morsel had we tasted,
And our heads were almost splitting with the cannons'
deafening thrill,
When a figure tall and stately round the rampart strode sedately;
It was PRESCOTT, one since told me; he commanded on the hill.

Every woman's heart grew bigger when we saw his manly figure,
With the banyan buckled round it, standing up so straight
and tall;
Like a gentleman of leisure who is strolling out for pleasure,
Through the storm of shells and cannon-shot he walked around
the wall.

At eleven the streets were swarming, for the red-coats' ranks
were forming;
At noon in marching order they were moving to the piers;
How the bayonets gleamed and glistened, as we looked far
down and listened
To the trampling and the drum-beat of the belted grenadiers!

At length the men have started, with a cheer (it seemed
faint-hearted),
In their scarlet regimentals, with their knapsacks on their
backs,
And the reddening, rippling water, as after a sea-fight's
slaughter,
Round the barges gliding onward blushed like blood along
their tracks.

So they crossed to the other border, and again they formed in order;
And the boats came back for soldiers, came for soldiers,
soldiers still:
The time seemed everlasting to us women faint and fasting,--
At last they're moving, marching, marching proudly up the hill.

We can see the bright steel glancing all along the lines advancing--
Now the front rank fires a volley--they have thrown away their shot;
Far behind the earthwork lying, all the balls above them flying,
Our people need not hurry; so they wait and answer not.

Then the Corporal, our old cripple (he would swear sometimes
and tipple),--
He had heard the bullets whistle (in the old French war) before,--
Calls out in words of jeering, just as if they all were hearing,--
And his wooden leg thumps fiercely on the dusty belfry floor:--


"Oh! fire away, ye villains, and earn King George's shillin's,
But ye'll waste a ton of powder afore a 'rebel' falls;
You may bang the dirt and welcome, they're as safe as Dan'l
Malcolm
Ten foot beneath the gravestone that you've splintered with
your balls! "

In the hush of expectation, in the awe and trepidation
Of the dread approaching moment, we are well-nigh breathless all;
Though the rotten bars are failing on the rickety belfry railing,
We are crowding up against them like the waves against a wall.

Just a glimpse (the air is clearer), they are nearer,--nearer,--
nearer,
When a flash--a curling smoke-wreath--then a crash--the
steeple shakes--
The deadly truce is ended; the tempest's shroud is rended;
Like a morning mist it gathered, like a thunder-cloud it breaks!

O the sight our eyes discover as the blue-black smoke blows over!
The red-coats stretched in windrows as a mower rakes his hay;
Here a scarlet heap is lying, there a headlong crowd is flying
Like a billow that has broken and is shivered into spray.

Then we cried, "The troops are routed! they are beat--it can't
be doubted!
God be thanked, the fight is over! "--Ah! the grim old soldier's
smile!
"Tell us, tell us why you look so? " (we could hardly speak,
we shook so),--
"Are they beaten? _Are_ they beaten? ARE they beaten? "--
"Wait a while. "

O the trembling and the terror! for too soon we saw our error:
They are baffled, not defeated; we have driven them back in vain;
And the columns that were scattered, round the colors that
were tattered,
Toward the sullen silent fortress turn their belted breasts again.

All at once, as we are gazing, lo the roofs of Charlestown blazing!
They have fired the harmless village; in an hour it will be down!
The Lord in heaven confound them, rain his fire and brimstone
round them,--
The robbing, murdering red-coats, that would burn a peaceful town!