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The boy's book of battle-lyrics : $b a collection of verses illustrating some notable events in the history of the United States of America, from the colonial period to the outbreak of the sectional war — John Shaqi

History

The boy's book of battle-lyrics : $b a collection of verses illustrating some notable events in the history of the United States of America, from the colonial period to the outbreak of the sectional war

Name: The boy's book of battle-lyrics : $b a collection of verses illustrating some notable events in the history of the United States of America, from the colonial period to the outbreak of the sectional war
Author: English, Thomas Dunn

English, Thomas Dunn

United States -- History -- Poetry

Yet not all escaped that day:
    The _Actæon_ frigate lay
      At the shoal whereon she grounded
            Hours before;
    And her vexed and angry crew,
    As our shot at her we threw,
      And her sides of oak we pounded,
        Left the guns and took the oar.

    We beheld them from the deck
    Of her rent and tattered wreck,
      Like the rats from garner burning,
            Fastly flee;
    Ah, no more before the gale
    Will that gallant vessel sail;
      Nevermore, the billows spurning,
        Wave her white wings o’er the sea!

    Ere they fled, with spiteful ire
    They devoted her to fire,
      With her red-cross ensign proudly
            Floating free;
    But we boarded with a crew,
    Down the flying colors drew,
      While our cheers rang long and loudly
        To the fortress from the sea.

[Illustration: CHARLESTON IN 1780.]

    Then her small-arms all we took,
    And her bell and signal-book;
      Fired her cannon thrice, in honor
            Of the day;
    Bore her colors ensign down,
    In defiance of the crown;
      And to heap more scorn upon her,
        Jeering, trailed them o’er the bay.

    Then we fired her as before,
    And, exulting, from the shore
      Saw the flaming serpents creeping
            Up the shrouds;
    Saw them dance upon the deck,
    Saw them lick and gnaw the wreck,
      Saw them to the mast-heads leaping
        Through the rolling, smoking clouds.

    Then, while gleamed the sparks like stars,
    Snapped and fell the blazing spars,
      While the fire was moaning dirges,
            Came a roar;
    Upward sprang a pillared flame,
    And to fragments rent her frame,
      With a shock that drove the surges,
        White with terror, to the shore.

    Time since then has travelled on:
    Moultrie, Thomson, Jasper, gone!
      Few survive who shared the glory
            Of the scene;
    But their names in light shall blaze
    To the very latter days,
      And our sons, in song and story,
        Keep their memory ever green.




_A TURN OF THE TIDE._


[Illustration: TRENTON -1777-]

  During the latter part of 1776, affairs looked gloomy for the new
  Confederacy of the States. The affair at White Plains, the fall of
  Fort Washington, and the evacuation of Fort Lee, followed by the
  retreat across New Jersey, had reduced the forces of Washington
  to less than three thousand men. The enemy occupied Newark, New
  Brunswick, Princeton, Trenton, and Bordentown. They were thus
  scattered in detachments on a long line. When Washington crossed
  the river Delaware—which he did after securing every available boat
  on the shore—his force had dwindled to twenty-two hundred men; and
  this number was still further reduced by the expiration of the term
  of enlistment of a large portion. Congress had fled to Baltimore,
  and Cornwallis was about to seize Philadelphia.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The boy's book of battle-lyrics : $b a collection of verses illustrating some notable events in the history of the United States of America, from the colonial period to the outbreak of the sectional war

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