Ebenezer Eastman, of Gilmanton, is dead;-- At least they had him buried full fifty years ago;-- The gray White Mountain granite they set above his head, With some graven words upon it, to let the neighbors know Precisely what it was that made the grasses grow So wondrous rank and strong: How they rippled in the wind, As if nobody ever died, nobody ever sinned! To that old Bible name of his what eloquence was lent When its owner marched to battle,--not a ration, not a tent, Nor a promise nor a sign of a Continental cent! Ho, Ebenezer Eastman! We’ll call the roll again,-- Ho, dead and gone Lieutenant of the old-time Minute-Men! Plowing land for turnips, with awkward Buck and Bright, Was stout Lieutenant Eastman, one lovely day in June; He “hawed” them to the left and he “geed” them to the right, And they slowly came about in the lazy summer noon, He humming to himself the fragment of a tune, Which he would croon at night to the baby-boy who lay In basswood trough becradled first, a week ago that day! * * * * * All at a flying gallop a rider swings in sight, Pulls up beside the fallow and gives the view-halloo,-- His horse’s flanks are black, but his neck is foamy white:-- “Turn out, Lieutenant Eastman! There’s something else to do! The redcoats are a-swarming! Your summer plowing’s through!” No other word--away! And the rattling of the hoofs Was like the rain from traveling clouds along the cabin roofs. The plowman turned his cattle out; he saddled up the bay, And he rallied out the wilderness upon that summer day, And the Minute-Men of Gilmanton to Boston marched away. About the mother? Well, she watched beside the cabin door, And rocked the baby’s basswood boat upon the puncheon floor.