Grandmothers Story of Bunker Hill Battle | Page 2

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.
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[Illustration]
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;
For behind their 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:--
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[Illustration]
"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.
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[Illustration]
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!
Oh 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.
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[Illustration]
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."
Oh 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.
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[Illustration]
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!
They are marching, stern and solemn; we can see each massive column
As they near the naked earth-mound with the slanting walls so steep.
Have our soldiers got faint-hearted, and in noiseless haste departed?
Are they panic-struck and helpless? Are they palsied or asleep?
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[Illustration]
Now! the walls they're almost under! scarce a rod the foes asunder! Not
a firelock flashed against them! up the earthwork they will swarm! But
the words have scarce been spoken, when the ominous calm is broken,
And a bellowing crash has emptied all the vengeance of the storm!
So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted backwards to the water, Fly
Pigot's running heroes and the frightened braves of Howe; And we
shout, "At last they're done for, it's their barges they have
run for:
They are beaten, beaten, beaten; and the battle's over now!"
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[Illustration]
And we looked, poor timid creatures, on the rough old soldier's features,
Our lips afraid to question, but he knew what we would ask: "Not
sure," he said; "keep quiet,--once more, I guess, they'll try it-- Here's
damnation to the cut-throats!"--then he handed me his flask,
Saying, "Gal, you're looking shaky; have a drop of old Jamaiky; I'm
afeard there'll be more trouble afore the job is done;" So I took one
scorching swallow; dreadful faint I felt and hollow, Standing there
from early morning when the firing was begun.
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[Illustration]

All through those hours of trial I had watched a calm clock dial, As the
hands kept creeping, creeping,--they were creeping round 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!
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[Illustration]
Over heaps