Twin brothers of flame and evil, In their quivering living light, They ruled with a frightful beauty The desolate waste of night. Thus did the battle mountain Blazon with flashes dire; The leaguered crest responded In a coronal of fire. The tough old fowling-pieces In huddling tumult rang. Louder the muskets' roaring! Shriller the rifles' clang! Hour after hour the turmoil Gathered and swelled apace, Till the hill seemed a volcano Bursting in every place. Then the lights grew faint and meagre, Though the hideous noise rolled on; And out of a bath of glory Uprose the noble sun. It brightened the tossing banner; It yellowed the leafy crest; It smote on the serried weapons, On helmet and scarlet breast. It drove on the mist below them Where Stark and his foremost stood, Flashing volley for volley Into the stubborn wood. A thousand stalwart figures Sprang from the gulf profound, A thousand guns uplifted Went whirling round and round. Like some barbarian onslaught On a lofty Roman hold; Like the upward rush of Titans On Olympian gods of old; With a swirl of the wrangling torrents As they dash on a castle wall; With the flame-seas skyward surging At the mountain demon's call, Heedless of friend and brother Stricken to earth below, The sons of New England bounded On the breastwork of the foe. Each stalwart form on the ramparts Swaying his battered gun Seemed a vengeful giant, looming Against the rising sun. The pond'rous clubs swept crashing Through the bayonets round their feet As a woodman's axe-edge crashes Through branches mailed in sleet, Shattering head and shoulder, Splintering arm and thigh, Hurling the redcoats earthward Like bolts from an angry sky. Faster each minute and faster The yeomen swarm over the wall, And narrower grows the circle And thicker the Britons fall; Till Baum with his Hessian swordsmen Swift to the rescue flies, The frown of the Northland on their brows And the war-light in their eyes. Back reeled the men of Berkshire, The mountaineers gave back, But Stark and his Hampshire yeomen Flung full across their track. The stern Teutonic mother Well might she grandly eye The prowess dread of her war-swarms red As they racked the earth and sky. Like rival wrestling athletes Grappled the East and West. With straining thews and staring eyes They swayed and strove for the royal prize, A continent's virgin breast. Till at last as a strong man's wrenching Shatters a brittle vase, The lustier arms of the Westland Shattered the elder race. Baum and his bravest cohorts Lay on the trampled sod, And Stark's strong cry rose clear and high, "Yield in the name of God!"