No More Learning

Then I said, "Now, dear old granny, don't you fret and worry any,
For I'll soon come back and tell you whether this is work or play;
There can't be mischief in it, so I won't be gone a minute"--
For a minute then I started. I was gone the livelong day.

No time for bodice-lacing or for looking-glass grimacing;
Down my hair went as I hurried, tumbling half-way to my heels;
God forbid your ever knowing, when there's blood around her
flowing,
How the lonely, helpless daughter of a quiet household feels!

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.