Delve from the bank of York, and gallery far,
Deep subterranean, to the mount of war;
Beneath the ditch, through rocks and fens they go,
Scoop the dark chamber plumb beneath the foe;
There lodge their tons of powder and retire,
Mure the dread passage, wave the fatal fire,
Send a swift messenger to warn the foe
To seek his safety and the post forgo.
A taunting answer comes; he dares defy
To spring the mine and all its Etnas try;
When a black miner seized the sulphur’d brand,
Shriekt high for joy and with untrembling hand
Toucht quick the insidious train; lest here the chief
Should change his counsel and afford relief:
For hard the general’s task to speak the doom
That sends a thousand heroes to the tomb;
Heroes who know no wrong; who thoughtless speed
Where kings command or where their captains lead.
—Burst with the blast the reeling mountain roars,
Heaves, labors, boils and through the concave pours
His flaming contents high; he chokes the air
With all his warriors and their works of war;
Guns, bastions, magazines confounded fly,
Vault wide their fresh explosions o’er the sky,
Encumber each far camp and plow profound
With their rude fragments every neighboring ground.
Britain’s brave leader, where he sought repose
And deem’d his hill-fort still repulsed the foes,
Starts at the astounding earthquake and descries
His chosen veterans whirling down the skies.
Their mangled members round his balcon fall,
Scorcht in the flames and dasht on every wall:
Sad field of contemplation! here, ye great,
Kings, priests of God, and ministers of state,
Review your system here! behold and scan
Your own fair deeds, your benefits to man!
You will not leave him to his natural toil,
To tame these elements and till the soil.
To reap, share, tithe you what his hand has sown,
Enjoy his treasures and increase your own,
Build up his virtues on the base design’d,
The well toned harmonies of humankind.
You choose to check his toil and band his eyes
To all that’s honest and to all that’s wise;
Lure with false fame, false morals and false lore,
To barter fields of corn for fields of gore,
To take by bands what single thieves would spare,
And methodise his murders into war.
Now the prest garrison fresh danger warms;
They rush impetuous to each post of arms,
Man the long trench, each embrasure sustain
And pour their langrage on the allied train;
Whose swift approaches, crowding on the line,
Each wing envelop and each front confine.
O’er all sage Washington his arm extends,
Points every movement, every work defends,
Bids closer quarters, bloodier strokes proceed,
New batteries blaze and heavier squadrons bleed.
Line within line fresh parallels enclose;
Here runs a zigzag, there a mantlet grows,
Round the pent foe approaching breastworks rise,
And bombs like meteors vault the flaming skies.
Night, with her hovering wings, asserts in vain
The shades, the silence of her rightful reign;
High roars her canopy with fiery flakes,
And War stalks wilder through the glare he makes.
With dire dismay the British chief beheld
The foe advance, his veterans shun the field,
Despair and slaughter where he turns his eye,
No hope in combat and no power to fly;
Degrasse victorious shakes the shadowy tide,
Imbodied nations all the champaign hide,
Fosses and batteries, growing on the sight,
Still pour new thunders and increase the fight;
Shells rain before him, rending every mound,
Crags, gunstones, balls o’erturn the tented ground,
From post to post his driven ranks retire,
The earth in crimson and the skies on fire.
Death wantons proud in this decisive round,
For here his hand its favorite victim found;
Brave Scammel perisht here. Ah! short, my friend,
Thy bright career, but glorious to its end.
Go join thy Warren’s ghost, your fates compare,
His that commenced, with thine that closed the war;
Freedom, with laurel’d brow but tearful eyes,
Bewails her first and last, her twinlike sacrifice.
Now grateful truce suspends the burning war,
And groans and shouts promiscuous load the air;
When the tired Britons, where the smokes decay,
Quit their strong station and resign the day.
Slow files along the immeasurable train,
Thousands on thousands redden all the plain,
Furl their torn bandrols, all their plunder yield
And pile their muskets on the battle field.
Their wide auxiliar nations swell the crowd,
And the coopt navies from the neighboring flood
Repeat surrendering signals and obey
The landmen’s fate on this concluding day.
Cornwallis first, their late all-conquering lord,
Bears to the victor chief his conquer’d sword,
Presents the burnisht hilt and yields with pain
The gift of kings, here brandisht long in vain.
Then bow their hundred banners, trailing far
Their wearied wings from all the skirts of war.
Battalion’d infantry and squadron’d horse
Dash the silk tassel and the golden torse;
Flags from the forts and ensigns from the fleet
Roll in the dust and at Columbia’s feet
Prostrate the pride of thrones; they firm the base
Of freedom’s temple, while her arms they grace.
Here Albion’s crimson Cross the soil o’erspreads,
Her Lion crouches and her Thistle fades;
Indignant Erin rues her trampled Lyre,
Brunswick’s pale Steed forgets his foamy fire,
Proud Hessia’s Castle lies in dust o’erthrown,
And venal Anspach quits her broken Crown.
Long trains of wheel’d artillery shade the shore,
Quench their blue matches and forget to roar;
Along the encumber’d plain, thick planted rise
High stacks of muskets glittering to the skies,
Numerous and vast. As when the toiling swains
Heap their whole harvest on the stubbly plains;
Gerb after gerb the bearded shock expands,
Shocks, ranged in rows, hill high the burden’d lands;
The joyous master numbers all the piles,
And o’er his well-earn’d crop complacent smiles:
Such growing heaps this iron harvest yield,
So tread the victors this their final field.
Triumphant Washington, with brow serene,
Regards unmoved the exhilarating scene,
Weighs in his balanced thought the silent grief
That sinks the bosom of the fallen chief,
With all the joy that laurel crowns bestow,
A world reconquer’d and a vanquisht foe.
Thus through extremes of life, in every state,
Shines the clear soul, beyond all fortune great,
While smaller minds, the dupes of fickle chance,
Slight woes o’erwhelm and sudden joys entrance.
So the full sun, through all the changing sky,
Nor blasts nor overpowers the naked eye;
Though transient splendors, borrowed from his light,
Glance on the mirror and destroy the sight.
He bids brave Lincoln guide with modest air,
The last glad triumph of the finisht war,
Who sees, once more, two armies shade one plain,
The mighty victors and the captive train.
Book VIII
Hymn to Peace—Eulogy on the heroes slain in the war, in which the Author finds occasion to mention his
