Too weak in our numbers to venture a sally, We sat in our fortress and looked on the valley. We heard the wild uproar, the screaming and yelling, The firing and crashing, of butchery telling. No tiger imprisoned in iron-bound caging Felt half of our fury or equalled our raging. Yet what could we hinder? Revenge was denied us, While ten times our number to battle defied us. Though wild was our anguish and deep our despairing, With three hundred to fight would be imbecile daring. But Colonel John Harper, who chafed at the ravage, The pillage and murder, by Tory and savage, Urged us on to the combat, and angrily showered Hot words on our chief as a cold-blooded coward. We heard all his raving of anger in sadness; We never resented, but pitied his madness. John Harper looked round him, and said he scorned favor, He’d seek for assistance from men who were braver. He called for his horse, and defied us to stay him, And scoffed at the cowards who dared not obey him. His foot in the stirrups, he hearkened to no man, Sank spurs to their rowels, and charged through the foeman. He scattered them fiercely, and, ere they could rally, Away like an arrow he shot through the valley. He broke through the circle created to bound him; The bullets they showered fell harmlessly round him. When fair in the saddle, he never was idle; He rode through the darkness, and kept a loose bridle. On, on through the darkness, till daylight was o’er him, And Albany’s houses rose proudly before him. We heard the shots rattle, we saw his foes rally, And thought that his life-blood had moistened the valley. Meanwhile in the fortress, through all the night dreary, We watched till the sunrise, disheartened and weary. Noon came in its splendor; we saw them preparing To storm our rude ramparts, and laughed at their daring. For we were in shelter, and they were uncovered— There was work for the buzzards that over us hovered. Each step they took forward, with eagerness timing, We handled our rifles, and looked to the priming. But, stay! is this real, or only delusion? What means their blank terror, their sudden confusion? The whole of the foemen seem stricken with one dread— ’Tis Colonel John Harper, with horsemen a hundred! We gaze but a moment in rapture and wonder— Rides Harper like lightning, we fall like the thunder. To saddle, M’Donald! your doom has been spoken; The tigers are on you, the bars have been broken. Whose horse is the swiftest may ride from the foray; No hope for the footman if savage or Tory. The heart shuts on pity when vengeance is portress; And husbands and fathers came forth from the fortress. As the wails of our wives and our babes we remember, The bright fire of mercy goes out—the last ember.