They were making for the steeple,--the old soldier and his people; The pigeons circled round us as we climbed the creaking stair. Just across the narrow river--oh, so close it made me shiver!-- Stood a fortress on the hill-top that but yesterday was bare. Not slow our eyes to find it; well we knew who stood behind it, Though the earthwork hid them from us, and the stubborn walls were dumb Here were sister, wife, and mother, looking wild upon each other, And their lips were white with terror as they said, THE HOUR HAS COME! The morning slowly wasted, not a morsel had we tasted, And our heads were almost splitting with the cannons' deafening thrill, When a figure tall and stately round the rampart strode sedately; It was PRESCOTT, one since told me; he commanded on the hill. Every woman's heart grew bigger when we saw his manly figure, With the banyan buckled round it, standing up so straight and tall; Like a gentleman of leisure who is strolling out for pleasure, Through the storm of shells and cannon-shot he walked around the wall. At eleven the streets were swarming, for the red-coats' ranks were forming; At noon in marching order they were moving to the piers; How the bayonets gleamed and glistened, as we looked far down, and listened To the trampling and the drum-beat of the belted grenadiers! At length the men have started, with a cheer (it seemed faint-hearted), In their scarlet regimentals, with their knapsacks on their backs, And the reddening, rippling water, as after a sea-fight's slaughter, Round the barges gliding onward blushed like blood along their tracks. So they crossed to the other border, and again they formed in order; And the boats came back for soldiers, came for soldiers, soldiers still: The time seemed everlasting to us women faint and fasting,-- At last they're moving, marching, marching proudly up the hill. We can see the bright steel glancing all along the lines advancing,-- Now the front rank fires a volley,--they have thrown away their shot; For behind their earthwork lying, all the balls above them flying, Our people need not hurry; so they wait and answer not. Then the Corporal, our old cripple (he would swear sometimes and tipple), He had heard the bullets whistle (in the old French war) before,-- Calls out in words of jeering, just as if they all were hearing,-- And his wooden leg thumps fiercely on the dusty belfry floor:-- "Oh! fire away, ye villains, and earn King George's shillin's, But ye 'll waste a ton of powder afore a 'rebel' falls; You may bang the dirt and welcome, they're as safe as Dan'l Malcolm Ten foot beneath the gravestone that you've splintered with your balls!" In the hush of expectation, in the awe and trepidation Of the dread approaching moment, we are well-nigh breathless all; Though the rotten bars are failing on the rickety belfry railing, We are crowding up against them like the waves against a wall.