Complete Poetical Works | Page 9

stuck there like a fool,?When thar flashed on my sight a quick glimmer of light?From the top of the little stone fence on the right,?And I knew 'twas a rifle, and back of it all?Rose the face of that bushwhacker, Cherokee Hall!
Then I felt in my dread that the moment the head?Of the Major was lifted, the Major was dead;?And I stood still and white, but Lord! gals, in spite?Of my care, that derned pistol went off in my fright!?Went off--true as gospil!--and, strangest of all,?It actooally injured that Cherokee Hall!
Thet's all--now, go 'long! Yes, some folks thinks it's wrong, And thar's some wants to know to what side I belong;?But I says, "Served him right!" and I go, all my might,?In love or in war, for a fair stand-up fight;?And as for the Major--sho! gals, don't you know?Thet--Lord! thar's his step in the garden below.
CALDWELL OF SPRINGFIELD
(NEW JERSEY, 1780)
Here's the spot. Look around you. Above on the height?Lay the Hessians encamped. By that church on the right?Stood the gaunt Jersey farmers. And here ran a wall,--?You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball.?Nothing more. Grasses spring, waters run, flowers blow,?Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago.
Nothing more, did I say? Stay one moment: you've heard?Of Caldwell, the parson, who once preached the word?Down at Springfield? What, no? Come--that's bad; why, he had All the Jerseys aflame! And they gave him the name?Of the "rebel high priest." He stuck in their gorge,?For he loved the Lord God--and he hated King George!
He had cause, you might say! When the Hessians that day?Marched up with Knyphausen, they stopped on their way?At the "farms," where his wife, with a child in her arms,?Sat alone in the house. How it happened none knew?But God--and that one of the hireling crew?Who fired the shot! Enough!--there she lay,?And Caldwell, the chaplain, her husband, away!
Did he preach--did he pray? Think of him as you stand?By the old church to-day,--think of him and his band?Of militant ploughboys! See the smoke and the heat?Of that reckless advance, of that straggling retreat!?Keep the ghost of that wife, foully slain, in your view--?And what could you, what should you, what would YOU do?
Why, just what HE did! They were left in the lurch?For the want of more wadding. He ran to the church,?Broke the door, stripped the pews, and dashed out in the road With his arms full of hymn-books, and threw down his load?At their feet! Then above all the shouting and shots?Rang his voice: "Put Watts into 'em! Boys, give 'em Watts!"
And they did. That is all. Grasses spring, flowers blow,?Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago.?You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball--?But not always a hero like this--and that's all.
POEM
DELIVERED ON THE FOURTEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF CALIFORNIA'S ADMISSION INTO THE UNION, SEPTEMBER 9, 1864
We meet in peace, though from our native East?The sun that sparkles on our birthday feast?Glanced as he rose on fields whose dews were red?With darker tints than those Aurora spread.?Though shorn his rays, his welcome disk concealed?In the dim smoke that veiled each battlefield,?Still striving upward, in meridian pride,?He climbed the walls that East and West divide,--?Saw his bright face flashed back from golden sand,?And sapphire seas that lave the Western land.
Strange was the contrast that such scenes disclose?From his high vantage o'er eternal snows;?There War's alarm the brazen trumpet rings--?Here his love-song the mailed cicala sings;?There bayonets glitter through the forest glades--?Here yellow cornfields stack their peaceful blades;?There the deep trench where Valor finds a grave--?Here the long ditch that curbs the peaceful wave;?There the bold sapper with his lighted train--?Here the dark tunnel and its stores of gain;?Here the full harvest and the wain's advance--?There the Grim Reaper and the ambulance.
With scenes so adverse, what mysterious bond?Links our fair fortunes to the shores beyond??Why come we here--last of a scattered fold--?To pour new metal in the broken mould??To yield our tribute, stamped with Caesar's face,?To Caesar, stricken in the market-place?
Ah! love of country is the secret tie?That joins these contrasts 'neath one arching sky;?Though brighter paths our peaceful steps explore,?We meet together at the Nation's door.?War winds her horn, and giant cliffs go down?Like the high walls that girt the sacred town,?And bares the pathway to her throbbing heart,?From clustered village and from crowded mart.
Part of God's providence it was to found?A Nation's bulwark on this chosen ground;?Not Jesuit's zeal nor pioneer's unrest?Planted these pickets in the distant West,?But He who first the Nation's fate forecast?Placed here His fountains sealed for ages past,?Rock-ribbed and guarded till the coming time?Should fit the people for their work sublime;?When a new Moses with his rod of steel?Smote the tall cliffs with one wide-ringing peal,?And the old miracle in record told?To the new Nation was revealed in gold.
Judge not too