A sight, a sound the soul to shock— A dark face peering past a rock, The clicking of a rifle lock. Forth from a jet of fiery red Leaped to its mark the deadly lead— Dirck Bergen fell beside me dead. To life the sleeping echoes woke, As from each rock and tree there broke A flash of fire, a wreath of smoke. Then rang around us yell on yell, As though the very fiends of hell Had risen in that gloomy dell. And though the foe we scarce could see, Still from each bush and rock and tree He poured his fire incessantly. From a sheltering trunk I glanced around— Dying and dead bestrewed the ground, Though some by flight scant safety found. Ay, flight! as Herkimer had said, Appalled at blood-drops raining red, The rear-guard all like dastards fled. But Herkimer blenched not—clearer, then, His accents rang throughout the glen, Cheering the spirits of his men. And though his horse was slain, and he Was wounded sorely in the knee, A cooler man there could not be. He was not chafed nor stirred the least, But, gay as a guest at a wedding-feast, He bade them strip his dying beast. A famous seat the saddle made Beneath a beech-tree’s spreading shade, From whence the battle he surveyed. All through the hottest of the fight He sat there with his pipe alight, And gave his orders left and right. [Illustration: GENERAL HERKIMER DIRECTING THE BATTLE.] Whoever could gaze at him and flee, The basest of poltroons would be— The sight chased every fear from me. None shrank the foe, though sore bestead; Each from his tree the bullet sped, And paid them back with lead for lead. The battle-shout, the dying groan, The hatchet’s crash, the rifle’s tone, Mixed with the wounded’s painful moan. Full many a stout heart bounding light, Full many a dark eye beaming bright, Were still’d in death and closed in night. I was not idle through the fray; But there was one alone that day I had a fierce desire to slay. I had seen the face, and marked it well, That peered from the rock when Bergen fell; And I watched for that at every yell. No hound on scent more rapt could be, As I scanned the fight from behind the tree; And five I slew, but neither was he. At length I saw a warrior brain A neighbor’s son, young Andrew Lane, And stoop to scalp the fallen slain. ’Twas he! my brain to throb began, My eager hands to the gunstock ran, And I dropped fresh priming in the pan. His savage work was speedily through; He raised and gave the scalp-halloo; Sure aim I took, and the trigger drew. Off to its mark the bullet sped; Leaped from his breast a current red; And the slayer of honest Dirck was dead.