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April, 1775
IN Pilgrim land, one Sabbath-day, | |
| The winter lay like sheep about | |
| The ragged pastures mullein gray; | |
| The April sun shone in and out, | |
| The showers swept by in fitful flocks, | 5 |
| And eaves ticked fast like mantel clocks; | |
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| And now and then a wealthy cloud | |
| Would wear a ribbon broad and bright, | |
| And now and then a wingéd crowd | |
| Of shivering azure flash in sight. | 10 |
| So rainbows bend, and bluebirds fly, | |
| And violets show their bits of sky. | |
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| To Enfield church throng all the town, | |
| In quilted hood and bombazine, | |
| In beaver hat with flaring crown, | 15 |
| And quaint Vandyke and victorine; | |
| And buttoned boys in roundabout | |
| From calyx collars blossom out; | |
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| Bandannas wave their feeble fire, | |
| And foot-stoves tinkle up the aisle; | 20 |
| A gray-haired elder leads the choir, | |
| And girls in linsey-woolsey smile. | |
| So back to life the beings glide | |
| Whose very graves had ebbed and died. | |
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| One hundred years have waned, and yet | 25 |
| We call the roll, and not in vain, | |
| For one whose flintlock musket set | |
| The echoes wild round Fort Duquesne, | |
| And smelled the battle’s powder smoke | |
| Ere Revolution’s thunders woke. | 30 |
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| Lo, Thomas Abbe answers, “Here!” | |
| Within the dull long-metre place. | |
| That day, upon the parson’s ear, | |
| And trampling down his words of grace, | |
| A horseman’s gallop rudely beat | 35 |
| Along the splashed and empty street. | |
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| The rider drew his dripping rein, | |
| And then a letter, wasp-nest gray, | |
| That ran: “The Concord minute-men | |
| And red-coats had a fight to-day! | 40 |
| To Captain Abbe this with speed.” | |
| Twelve little words to tell the deed. | |
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| The captain read, struck out for home | |
| The old quickstep of battle born, | |
| Slung on once more a battered drum | 45 |
| That bore a painted unicorn, | |
| Then right-about, as whirls a torch, | |
| He stood before the sacred porch. | |
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| And then a murmuring of bees | |
| Broke in upon the house of prayer; | 50 |
| And then a wind-song swept the trees, | |
| And then a snarl from wolfish lair; | |
| And then a charge of grenadiers, | |
| And then a flight of drum-beat cheers. | |
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| So drum and doctrine rudely blent, | 55 |
| The casements rattled strange accord; | |
| No mortal knew what either meant; | |
| ’T was double-drag and Holy Word, | |
| Thus saith the drum, and thus the Lord. | |
| The captain raised so wild a rout | 60 |
| He drummed the congregation out. | |
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| The people gathered round amazed; | |
| The soldier bared his head and spoke, | |
| And every sentence burned and blazed, | |
| As trenchant as a sabre stroke: | 65 |
| “’T is time to pick the flint to-day, | |
| To sling the knapsack, and away! | |
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| “The green of Lexington is red | |
| With British red-coats, brothers’ blood! | |
| In rightful cause the earliest dead | 70 |
| Are always best beloved of God. | |
| Mark time! Now let the march begin! | |
| All bound for Boston fall right in!” | |
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| Then rub-a-dub the drum jarred on, | |
| The throbbing roll of battle beat; | 75 |
| “Fall in, my men!” and one by one | |
| They rhymed the tune with heart and feet. | |
| And so they made a Sabbath march | |
| To glory ’neath the elm-tree arch. | |
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| The Continental line unwound | 80 |
| Along the churchyard’s breathless sod, | |
| And holier grew the hallowed ground | |
| Where Virtue slept and Valor trod. | |
| Two hundred strong that April day | |
| They rallied out and marched away. | 85 |
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| Brigaded there at Bunker Hill, | |
| Their names are writ on Glory’s page. | |
| The brave old captain’s Sunday drill | |
| Has drummed its way across the age. | |
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