To Georgiana Rice
YE sons of Massachusetts, all who love that honored name, | |
| Ye children of New England, holding dear your fathers’ fame, | |
| Hear tell of Sudbury’s battle through a day of death and flame! | |
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| The painted Wampanoags, Philip’s hateful warriors, creep | |
| Upon the town at springtide when the skies denied us rain, | 5 |
| We see their shadows lurking in the forest’s dusky deep, | |
| And speed the sorry tidings past dry field and rustling lane: | |
| Come hastily or never when the wild beast lusts for gore | |
| And send your best and bravest if you wish to see us more! | |
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| The Commonwealth is quiet now, and peace her measure fills, | 10 |
| Content in homes and farmsteads, busy marts and buzzing mills | |
| From the Atlantic’s roaring to the tranquil Berkshire hills. | |
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| But through that day our fathers, whispering their breathless words, | |
| Their wives and babes in safety, toil to save their little all; | |
| They fetch their slender food-stores, drive indoors their scanty herds, | 15 |
| They clean the bell-mouthed musket, melt the lead and mould the ball; | |
| Please God they’ll keep their battle till their countrymen shall haste | |
| With succor from the eastward, iron-hearted, flinty-faced. | |
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| A hundred dragging twelvemonths ere the welcome joy-bells ring | |
| The dawn of Independence did King Philip’s devils spring | 20 |
| Through April on the little town, like wolves a-ravening. | |
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| The morning lifts in fury as they come with torch in hand, | |
| And howl about the houses in the little frontier town; | |
| Our garrisons hold steady while the flames by breezes fanned | |
| Disclose the painted demons, fierce and cunning, lithe and brown; | 25 |
| At every loophole firing, women near at hand to load, | |
| The children bringing bullets, thus the Sudbury men abode. | |
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| By night, through generations, have the eager children come | |
| Beside their grandsire’s settle, listening to the droning hum | |
| Of this old tale, with backward glances, open-mouthed and dumb. | 30 |
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| The burning hours stretch slowly—then a welcome sight appears! | |
| Along the tawny upland where stout Haynes keeps faithful guard | |
| From Watertown comes Mason, young in everything but years— | |
| Our men rush down to meet him; then, together, swift and hard, | |
| They force the Indians backward to the Musketaquid’s side, | 35 |
| And slaying, ever slaying, drive them o’er the reddened tide. | |
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| There stand stout Haynes and Mason by the bridge upon the flood; | |
| In vain the braves attack them, thick as saplings in the wood. | |
| Praise God for men so valiant, who have such a foe withstood! | |
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| But Green Hill looks with anguish down upon the painted horde | 40 |
| Their stealthy ambush keeping as the Concord men draw near, | |
| To dart with hideous noises as they reach the lower ford, | |
| A thousand ’gainst a dozen; but their every life costs dear | |
| As, sinking ’neath such numbers, one by one our neighbors fail— | |
| One sole survivor in his blood brings on the dreadful tale. | 45 |
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| Through sun and evening shadow, through the night till weary morn, | |
| Speeds Wadsworth with his soldiers, forth from Boston, spent and worn, | |
| And Brocklebank at Marlboro’ joins that little hope forlorn. | |
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| They hear the muskets snap afar, they hear the savage whoop— | |
| All weariness forgotten, on they hasten in relief; | 50 |
| They see the braves before them—with a cheer the little group | |
| Bends down and charges forward; from above the cunning chief | |
| His wild-cat eyes dilating, sees his bushes bloom with fire, | |
| The tree-trunks at his bidding blaze with fiendish lust and ire. | |
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| A thousand warriors lurk there and a thousand warriors shout, | 55 |
| Exulting, aiming, flaming, happy in our coming rout; | |
| But Wadsworth never pauses, every musket ringing out. | |
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| He gains the lifting hillside, and his sixscore win their way | |
| Defiant through the coppice till upon the summit placed; | |
| With every bullet counting, there they load and aim and slay, | 60 |
| Against all comers warring, iron-hearted, flinty-faced; | |
| Hold Philip as for scorning, drive him down the bloodstained slope, | |
| And stand there, firm and dauntless, steadfast in their faith and hope. | |
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| With Mason at the river, Wadsworth staunch upon the hill, | |
| The certain reinforcements, and black night the foe to chill, | 65 |
| An hour or less and hideous Death might have been baffled still. | |
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| But in that droughty woodland Philip fires the leaves and grass: | |
| The flames dance up the hillside, in their rear less savage foes. | |
| No courage can avail us, down the slope the English pass— | |
| A day in flame beginning lights with hell its awful close, | 70 |
| As swifter, louder, fiercer o’er the crest the reek runs past | |
| And headlong hurls bold Wadsworth, conquered by the cruel blast. | |
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| Ye men of Massachusetts, weep the awful slaughter there! | |
| The panther heart of Philip drives the English to despair, | |
| As scalping-knife and tomahawk gleam in th’ affrighted glare. | 75 |
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| There Wadsworth yields his spirit, Brocklebank must meet his doom; | |
| Within the stone mill’s shelter fights the remnant of their force; | |
| When swift upon the foemen, rushing through the gathering gloom, | |
| Cheer Crowell’s men from Brookfield, gallant Prentice with his horse! | |
| And Mason from the river, and Haynes join in the fight, | 80 |
| Till Philip’s host is routed, hurled on shrieking through the night. | |
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| Defeated, cursing, weeping, flees King Philip to his den; | |
| Our speedy vengeance glutted on the flower of his men; | |
| In pomp and pride the Wampanoags ne’er shall march again. | |
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| We mourn our stricken Captains, but not vainly did they fall: | 85 |
| The King of Pocanoket has received their stern command; | |
| Their lives were laid down gladly at their country’s trumpet-call, | |
| And on their savage foemen have they set the heavier hand; | |
| Against our day-long valor was the red man’s fortune spent | |
| And that one day at Sudbury has saved a continent. | 90 |
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| In graves adown the hemisphere, in graves across the seas, | |
| The sons of Massachusetts sleep, as here beneath her trees, | |
| Nor Brocklebank nor Wadsworth is the first or last of these. | |
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| Oh, blue hills of New England, slanting to the morning beams, | |
| Where suns and clouds of April have their balmy power sped; | 95 |
| Oh, greening woods and meadows, pleasant ponds and babbling streams, | |
| And clematis soft-blooming where War once his banners led; | |
| How hungers many an exile for that homeland far away, | |
| And all the happy dreaming of a bygone April day! | |
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| Wherever speaks New England, wheresoever spreads her shade, | 100 |
| We praise our fathers’ valor, and our fathers’ prayer is prayed, | |
| That, fearing God’s Wrath only, firm may stand the State they made. | |
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