OFTTIMES an old man’s yesterdays o’er his frail vision pass,
Dim as the twilight tints that touch a dusk-enshrouded glass;
But, ah! youth’s time and manhood’s prime but grow more brave, more bright,
As still the lengthening shadows steal toward the rayless night.
So deem it not a marvel, friends, if, gathering fair and fast,
I now behold the gallant forms that graced our glorious past,
And down the winds of memory hear those battle bugles blow,
Of strifeful breath, or wails of death, just fifty years ago.
Yes, fifty years this self-same morn, and yet to me it seems
As if time’s interval were spanned by a vague bridge of dreams,
Whose cloud-like arches form and fade, then form and fade again,
Until a beardless youth once more, ‘mid stern, thick-bearded men,
I ride on Rhoderic’s bounding back, all thrilled at heart to feel
My trusty “smooth-bore’s” deadly round, and touch of stainless steel–
And quivering with heroic rage–that rush of patriot ire
Which makes our lives from head to heel, one seething flood of fire.
There are some wrongs so blackly base, the tiger strain that runs,
And sometimes maddens thro’ the veins, of Adam’s fallen sons,
Must mount and mount to furious height, which only blood can quell,
Who smite with hellish hate must look for hate as hot from hell!
And hide it as we may with words, its awful need confessed,
War is a death’s-head thinly veiled, even warfare at its best;
But we–heaven help us!–strove with those by lust and greed accurst,
And learned what untold horrors wait on warfare at its worst.
You well may deem my soul in youth dwelt not on thoughts like these;
Timed to strong Rhoderic’s tramp my pulse grew tuneful as the breeze,
The hale October breeze, whose voice, borne from far ocean’s marge,
Pealed with the trumpet’s resonance, which sounds “To horse, and charge!”
A mist from recent rains was spread about the glimmering hills;
Far off, far off, we heard the lapse of streams and swollen rills,
While mingling with them, or beyond, from depths of changeful sky,
Rose savage, sullen, dissonant, the eagle’s famished cry.
We marched in four firm columns, nine hundred men and more,
Men of the mountain fortresses, men of the sea-girt shore;
Rough as their centuried oaks were these, those fierce as ocean’s, shocks,
When mad September breaks her heart across the Hatteras rocks.
We marched in four firm columns, till now the evening light
Glinted through rifting cloud and fog athwart the embattled height,
Whereon, deep-lined, in dense array of scarlet, buff or dun,
The haughtiest British “regulars” outflashed the doubtful sun.
Horsemen and footmen centred there, unflinching rank on rank,
And the base Tories circled near, to guard each threatened flank;
But, pale, determined, sternly calm, our men, dismounting, stood,
And at their leader’s cautious sign, crouched in the sheltering wood.
What scenes come back of ruin and wrack, before those ranks abhorred!
The cottage floor all fouled with gore, the axe, the brand, the cord;
A hundred craven deeds revived, of insult, injury, shame–
Deeds earth nor wave nor fire could hide, and crimes without a name.
Such thoughts but hardened soul and hand. Ha! “dour as death” were we,
Waiting to catch the voice which set our unleashed passion free.
At last it came deep, ominous, when all the mountain ways
Burst from awed silence into sound, and every bush ablaze,
Sent forth long jets of wavering blue, wherefrom, with fatal dart,
The red-hot Deckhard bullets flew, each hungering for a heart;
And swift as if our fingers held strange magic at their tips,
Our guns, reloaded, spake again from their death-dealing lips,
Again, again, and yet again, till in a moment’s hush,
We heard the order, “Bay’nets charge!” when, with o’ermastering rush,
Their “regulars” against its stormed, so strong, so swift of pace,
They hurled us backward bodily for full three furlongs’ space.
But, bless you, lads, we scattered, dodged, and when the charge was o’er,
Felt fiercer, pluckier, madder far, than e’er we had felt before;
From guardian tree to tree we crept, while upward, with proud tramp,
The British lines had slowly wheeled to gain their ‘leaguered camp.
Too late; for ere they topped the height, Hambright and Williams strode
With all their arm
(Paul Hamilton Hayne)
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