Were not those brave old races? Well, here they still abide; And yours is one or other, And the second's at your side; So when you hear your brother say, "Some loyal deed I'll do," Like old Valrennes, be ready with "I'm here to answer you!" WILLIAM DOUW SCHUYLER-LIGHTHALL. Peace was declared in 1697, but hostilities began again five years later, and early in 1704 Vaudreuil, governor of Canada, dispatched a force of three hundred, under Hertel de Rouville, against Deerfield, on the northwestern frontier of Massachusetts. They reached their destination a little before daylight of February 29, and, finding the sentinels asleep and the snow drifted over the palisades, rushed the place, and carried it, with the exception of one block-house, which held out successfully. THE SACK OF DEERFIELD [February 29, 1704] Of the onset, fear-inspiring, and the firing and the pillage Of our village, when De Rouville with his forces on us fell, When, ere dawning of the morning, with no death-portending warning, With no token shown or spoken, came the foeman, hear me tell. High against the palisadoes, on the meadows, banks, and hill-sides, At the rill-sides, over fences, lay the lingering winter snow; And so high by tempest rifted, at our pickets it was drifted, That its frozen crust was chosen as a bridge to bear the foe. We had set at night a sentry, lest an entry, while the sombre Heavy slumber was upon us, by the Frenchman should be made; But the faithless knave we posted, though of wakefulness he boasted, 'Stead of keeping watch was sleeping, and his solemn trust betrayed. Than our slumber none profounder; never sounder fell on sleeper, Never deeper sleep its shadow cast on dull and listless frames; But it fled before the crashing of the portals, and the flashing, And the soaring, and the roaring, and the crackling of the flames. Fell the shining hatchets quickly 'mid the thickly crowded women, Growing dim in crimson currents from the pulses of the brain; Rained the balls from firelocks deadly, till the melted snow ran redly With the glowing torrent flowing from the bodies of the slain. I, from pleasant dreams awaking at the breaking of my casement, With amazement saw the foemen enter quickly where I lay; Heard my wife and children's screaming, as the hatchets woke their dreaming, Heard their groaning and their moaning as their spirits passed away. 'Twas in vain I struggled madly as the sadly sounding pleading Of my bleeding, dying darlings fell upon my tortured ears; 'Twas in vain I wrestled, raging, fight against their numbers waging, Crowding round me there they bound me, while my manhood sank in tears.