Bunker Hill and Other Poems | Page 3

to four, When the old man said, "They're forming with their bagonets fixed for
storming:?It 's the death-grip that's a coming,--they will try the works once
more."
With brazen trumpets blaring, the flames behind them glaring, The deadly wall before them, in close array they come;?Still onward, upward toiling, like a dragon's fold uncoiling,-- Like the rattlesnake's shrill warning the reverberating drum
Over heaps all torn and gory--shall I tell the fearful story, How they surged above the breastwork, as a sea breaks over a deck; How, driven, yet scarce defeated, our worn-out men retreated, With their powder-horns all emptied, like the swimmers from a wreck?
It has all been told and painted; as for me, they say I fainted, And the wooden-legged old Corporal stumped with me down the stair: When I woke from dreams affrighted the evening lamps were lighted,-- On the floor a youth was lying; his bleeding breast was bare.
And I heard through all the flurry, "Send for WARREN! hurry! hurry! Tell him here's a soldier bleeding, and he 'll come and dress his
wound!"?Ah, we knew not till the morrow told its tale of death and sorrow, How the starlight found him stiffened on the dark and bloody ground.
Who the youth was, what his name was, where the place from which he came was,?Who had brought him from the battle, and had left him at our door, He could not speak to tell us; but 't was one of our brave fellows, As the homespun plainly showed us which the dying soldier wore.
For they all thought he was dying, as they gathered round him crying,-- And they said, "Oh, how they'll miss him!" and, "What will his mother
do?"?Then, his eyelids just unclosing like a child's that has been dozing, He faintly murmured, "Mother!"--and--I saw his eyes were blue.
"Why, grandma, how you 're winking!" Ah, my child, it sets me thinking Of a story not like this one. Well, he somehow lived along; So we came to know each other, and I nursed him like a--mother, Till at last he stood before me, tall, and rosy-checked, and strong.
And we sometimes walked together in the pleasant summer weather,-- "Please to tell us what his name was?" Just your own, my little dear,-- There's his picture Copley painted: we became so well acquainted, That--in short, that's why I 'm grandma, and you children all are here!
AT THE "ATLANTIC" DINNER
DECEMBER 15, 1874
I SUPPOSE it's myself that you're making allusion to?And bringing the sense of dismay and confusion to.?Of course some must speak,--they are always selected to,?But pray what's the reason that I am expected to??I'm not fond of wasting my breath as those fellows do;?That want to be blowing forever as bellows do;?Their legs are uneasy, but why will you jog any?That long to stay quiet beneath the mahogany?
Why, why call me up with your battery of flatteries??You say "He writes poetry,"--that 's what the matter is?"It costs him no trouble--a pen full of ink or two?And the poem is done in the time of a wink or two;?As for thoughts--never mind--take the ones that lie uppermost, And the rhymes used by Milton and Byron and Tupper most;?The lines come so easy! at one end he jingles 'em,?At the other with capital letters he shingles 'em,--?Why, the thing writes itself, and before he's half done with it He hates to stop writing, he has such good fun with it!"
Ah, that is the way in which simple ones go about?And draw a fine picture of things they don't know about!?We all know a kitten, but come to a catamount?The beast is a stranger when grown up to that amount,?(A stranger we rather prefer should n't visit us,?A felis whose advent is far from felicitous.)?The boy who can boast that his trap has just got a mouse?Must n't draw it and write underneath "hippopotamus";?Or say unveraciously, "This is an elephant,"--?Don't think, let me beg, these examples irrelevant,--?What they mean is just this--that a thing to be painted well Should always be something with which we're acquainted well.
You call on your victim for "things he has plenty of,--?Those copies of verses no doubt at least twenty of;?His desk is crammed full, for he always keeps writing 'em?And reading to friends as his way of delighting 'em!"?I tell you this writing of verses means business,--?It makes the brain whirl in a vortex of dizziness?You think they are scrawled in the languor of laziness--?I tell you they're squeezed by a spasm of craziness,?A fit half as bad as the staggering vertigos?That seize a poor fellow and down in the dirt he goes!
And therefore it chimes with the word's etytology?That the sons of Apollo are great on apology,?For the writing of verse is a struggle mysterious?And the gayest of rhymes is a matter that's serious.?For myself, I'm relied on by friends