The Battle of Lundy's Lane

WRITTEN after a moonlight ramble on Drummond's Hill, U.C.,
the scene of that bloody action, fought July 25, 1814,
where New Hampshire valor shone conspiciously.

IN other days you fatal hill,
   Glittered with arms and waved with plumes,
When the sad sunset on their steel,
   Flashed its last splendors; even's glooms
Rang with the bugle's martial breath
That called the brave to deeds of death.

Then the dismal cry of slaughter
   Broke on midnight's slumbering hour;
And the parched ground drank blood like water,
   As beneath the deadly shower
Of musket and artillery
With motto calm yet bold, "I'LL TRY,"
   The bristling ranks move on
Mid deafening thunder, sulphurous flash,
And shouts, and groans, and forests' crash,
Till hark! the sharp, clear bayonet's clash,
   Tells that the work is done.

There deeds of deathless praise proclaim,
How rolled War's tide when RIPLEY's name
   Swelled the wild shout of victory;
And dauntless Miller and McNeil
Led foremost, in the strife of steel,
   The flower of northern chivalry:
While Scott from British brows then tore
The laurels dyed in Gallic gore!

But these terrific scenes are past:
The peasants' slumbers, the wild blast
   Alone shall break them,
And those proud bannered hosts are gone,
where the shrill trumpet's charging tone
   No more may wake them.
Time in his flight has swept away,
Each vestige of the battle fray,
Save that the traveller views around,
The shattered oak—the grass-grown mound
   That shrines a hero's ashes!

Peace the brave! around their stone
Shall Freedom twine her rosy wreath,
And, though with moss of years o'ergrown,
Fame shall applaud their glorious death,
   Long as Niagara dashes!

[Caleb Stark, "The Battle of Lundy's Lane, in Charles James Fox (ed.), The New Hampshire Book. Being Specimens of the Literature of the Granite State 347-48 (Nashua, New Hampshire: H. D. Marshall, 1842)]