| Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829. | | | | Warren’s Address to the American Soldiers, before the Battle of Bunker Hill | | By John Pierpont (1785–1866) |
| | | STAND! the ground’s your own, my braves! | |
| Will ye give it up to slaves? | |
| Will ye look for greener graves? | |
| Hope ye mercy still? | |
| What ’s the mercy despots feel! | 5 |
| Hear it in that battle peal! | |
| Read it on yon bristling steel! | |
| Ask it—ye who will. | |
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| Fear ye foes who kill for hire! | |
| Will ye to your homes retire? | 10 |
| Look behind you! they ’re afire! | |
| And, before you, see | |
| Who have done it!—From the vale | |
| On they come!—and will ye quail?— | |
| Leaden rain and iron hail | 15 |
| Let their welcome be! | |
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| In the God of battles trust! | |
| Die we may—and die we must:— | |
| But, O, where can dust to dust | |
| Be consign’d so well, | 20 |
| As where heaven its dews shall shed | |
| On the martyr’d patriot’s bed, | |
| And the rocks shall raise their head, | |
| Of his deeds to tell! | | | | |
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