| |
| HEAR through the morning drums and trumpets sounding, | |
| Rumbling of cannon, tramp of mighty armies; | |
| Then the mist sunders, all the plain disclosing | |
| Scarlet for England. | |
| |
| Batteries roll on, halt, and flashing lightnings | 5 |
| Search out our earthworks, silent and portentous. | |
| Fierce on our right with crimson banners tossing | |
| Their lines spring forward. | |
| |
| Lanyards in hand, Americans and seamen, | |
| Gunners from warships, Lafitte’s privateersmen, | 10 |
| Roar out our thunders till the grape and shrapnel | |
| Shriek through their columns. | |
| |
| Shattered in fragments, thus their right is riven; | |
| But on our left a deadlier bolt is speeding: | |
| Wellesley’s Peninsulars, never yet defeated, | 15 |
| Charge in their valor. | |
| |
| Closing their files, our cannon fire disdaining, | |
| Dauntless they come with vict’ry on their standards; | |
| Then slowly rise the rifles of our marksmen, | |
| Tennessee hunters. | 20 |
| |
| Cradles of flame and scythes of whistling bullets | |
| Lay them in windrows, war’s infernal harvest. | |
| High through the onslaught Tennessee is shouting, | |
| Joying in battle. | |
| |
| Pakenham falls there, Keane and his Highlanders | 25 |
| Close from the centre, hopeless in their courage; | |
| Backward they stagger, dying and disabled, | |
| Gloriously routed. | |
| |
| Stilled are our rifles as our cheers grow louder: | |
| War clouds sweep back in January breezes, | 30 |
| Showing the dreadful proof of the great triumph | |
| God hath vouchsafed us. | |
| |
| That gallant war-host, England’s best and bravest, | |
| Met by raw levies, scores against its hundreds, | |
| Lies at our feet, a thing for woman’s weeping, | 35 |
| Red’ning the meadows. | |
| |
| Freed are our States from European tyrants: | |
| Lift then your voices for the little army | |
| Led by our battle-loving Andrew Jackson, | |
| Blest of Jehovah. | 40 |
| |
