They are marching, stern and solemn; we can see each massive column As they near the naked earth-mound with the slanting walls so steep. Have our soldiers got faint-hearted, and in noiseless haste departed? 95 Are they panic-struck and helpless? Are they palsied or asleep? Now! the walls they're almost under! scarce a rod the foes asunder! Not a firelock flashed against them! up the earthwork they will swarm! But the words have scarce been spoken when the ominous calm is broken, And a bellowing crash has emptied all the vengeance of the storm! 100 So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted backwards to the water, Fly Pigot's running heroes and the frightened braves of Howe; And we shout, "At last they're done for, it's their barges they have run for: They are beaten, beaten, beaten; and the battle's over now!" And we looked, poor timid creatures, on the rough old soldier's features, 105 Our lips afraid to question, but he knew what we would ask: "Not sure," he said; "keep quiet,--once more, I guess, they'll try it-- Here's damnation to the cut-throats!" then he handed me his flask, Saying, "Gal, you're looking shaky; have a drop of Old Jamaiky; I'm afeared there'll be more trouble afore the job is done;" 110 So I took one scorching swallow; dreadful faint I felt and hollow, Standing there from early morning when the firing was begun. All through those hours of trial I had watched a calm clock dial, As the hands kept creeping, creeping,--they were creeping round to four, When the old man said, "They're forming with their bayonets fixed for storming: 115 It's the death-grip that's a-coming,--they will try the works once more." With brazen trumpets blaring, the flames behind them glaring, The deadly wall before them, in close array they come; Still onward, upward toiling, like a dragon's fold uncoiling,-- Like the rattlesnake's shrill warning the reverberating drum! 120 Over heaps all torn and gory--shall I tell the fearful story, How they surged above the breastwork, as a sea breaks over a deck; How, driven, yet scarce defeated, our worn-out men retreated, With their powder-horns all emptied, like the swimmers from a wreck? It has all been told and painted; as for me, they say I fainted, 125 And the wooden-legged old Corporal stumped with me down the stair: When I woke from dreams affrighted the evening lamps were lighted,-- On the floor a youth was lying; his bleeding breast was bare.