Classic Poem

I .

In chronicles of other days
?What ashes, that were once a flame!
What deeds of arms, that miss their praise
?With mute reproach to silent fame!
But what of all that stands in sight
?In this new world, or that the old
War-wrinkled ages tell of fight
?Made famous by an action bold,
Surpasses this—a deed unknown
Or told, as heard, in speech alone,
Where shadows of unwritten fact
?Lingering around a mighty name
Dwindle and fade: because the act
?Is lost in history's grander claim:
Or that the action seems less great
In one to greatness consecrate:
The star that in the morning grey
?Was seen and marked, thus hides its light
In deeper splendor, when the day
?Rolls its great orb upon the sight:
Thus war and peace in song and story
?Drop all the titles that he won,
For the one name he gave to glory,
?And got from Heaven—to be by none
Raised higher, and to none passed on—
Its own great title, Washington!
II .

Harp that has long in silence slept,
Hast thou the shaping spirit kept
To tell how one great deed imparts
Its impulse to a thousand hearts?
Or what a heaven-born hero dares,
Defiant, while his soul despairs?
But pause: of what grand tale retold
Seems this the echo, onward rolled?
Of heroes in their dust, what forms,
?Warlike but calm, like men who long
Have dwelt in regions above storms,
?Called by the poet's magic song,
Or touched by hoary History's wand,
Start forth, as if by Glory's hand
Reclaimed from death!—the Attic king
?Who to his subjects, doomed, in strife,
Ignoble victory to bring,
?Fighting, put off his crown and life;
The Jarl, whose banner bore, foretold,
Death, wrapped with victory in its fold;
The youth, who held the bridge for Rome;
The Swiss, who made his Alpine home,
Scene of a drama beyond art
For power and pity, and his part
A terror to the human heart—
Stern archer, who before the eyes
?Of gloomy tyrants stands forever,
While each unerring shaft that flies
?Sings of its brother in the quiver!
And, in the same wild eyrie born,
And with his eagle soul of scorn,
The knight, who rode on victory's crest,
Borne by the spears that in his breast
He gathered to make Freedom way:
Heroes! but not the heroes they,
Realms wasted by the sword and flame,
Condemn to everlasting fame:
Greek, Roman, Goth—in each we see
The same great form, superb and free,
Of victim, vowed to Victory!
And though in fable's misty light
It gains in stature to the sight,
Was never form to that more true
Than this, which consecrates anew
The man, in whom mankind has known
Its greatest, by the tokens shown;
But never on his brow serene
Shadow of martyr's crown has seen.
Yet, doubt me not; without the name
?Martyrs have lived, in thought and will
Like those whom death gave palms of fame;
?And in the same grand circuit still
All things come round, from age to age—
So said the King; so reads the page;
Men but bequeath their heritage;
And heroes live, and men are free
By the soul's grand heredity.
And in what country or what day,
Be faith or faction what it may,
Lived hero, sung to Freedom's lyre,
?But had—though not upon the roll
Of men who died by axe or fire—
A martyr's faith, a martyr's soul?
III .

And this the tale: no fiction spun
?On Fairy wheel in days of old,
But what in Freedom's war was done,
?And brave Hugh Mercer saw and told—
Borne from the field and staying death
By that last use he had for breath—
And gave to those who leave to me
The right its chronicler to be,
And hero's tale of hero give
Place in a nation's narrative.
'Twas in a crisis of the strife
Of infant Freedom for her life,
Threatened by Britain's glaive, in scorn
Of birthright and of title torn
From monarchs by the iron will
Of men whose dauntless spirit still
Wrought in wide lands beyond the sea
The giant tasks of liberty.
Their voice her sleeping spirit woke;
A Sidney in her Adams spoke;
As finished, by a sculptor bold,
From block defaced or broken mould,
The work a master's hand begun,
So, Hampden, thine by Washington!
But little for such service then
He thought to have the thanks of men,
Or of a country that in fame
Snatched from a Continent its name;
And, as it first-born nation's right,
?Will bear forever on her shield
A MERICA , although in spite
?Of older claim and larger field.
Far on the land, the invader's power
?Impending cast a shadow grave;
And fear grew bold and croaked the hour
?Of coward triumph o'er the brave.
Forced backward by an iron hand,
And leaving naked all the land
From Blue Ridge to Atlantic strand,
On the Colonial arms a blight
Fell, like the rust that came by night
On blade and bayonet. Backward still,
?Still Southward, fell the patriot force.
What courage, or what strength of will
?Can fill the ranks of foot and horse,
Feed, clothe, inspire a starving host,
Half conscious that their cause is lost?
Thus by the fireside said, in thought,
Brave men: the women prayed and wrought—
Then through the Delaware's crashing ice
?The unexpected hero came,
To cast again the iron dice,
?For life or death, in war's grim game.
IV .

As oft, when his predestined track,
Re-entering, the sun turns back
On the stern realms of cold and frosts,
A wave of summer smites the hosts
Of icy vapor into rack
Of rain and mist, and drives the pack
Of winter's tyrants from their hold,
So back on the invaders rolled
The tide of battle, and before
The Colonies' ragged columns bore
The British and their Hessian corps.
O, sweeter than the voice of fame
?Or vows when parted lovers meet,
Is glory snatched from threatened shame,
?And victory following on defeat!
Nor then divined they that their feet,
?Ill-shod and wounded in the march
Would, later, press the flowery street,
?And under the triumphal arch
Of Trenton's civic pageant pass:
Nor yet how few the feet, alas,
That soil again would proudly tread—
But sadly, for it held the dead
Who, sleeping there in glory's bed,
Through summer's heat and winter's snow,
Shall never of their victory know!
V .

And now, though winners of the day,
Well knew they that before them lay
An army stubborn as the best
That ever yet, in east or west,
Held field or fortress: for the rest,
Briton or Teuton, theirs the race
Of which a Roman who in face
Of fiercest battle met the Franks,
Said, there were red cheeks in their ranks.
And the redcoats—beneath which aye
A red heart beat—no older day
Of shining mail or wolf's rough fell
Their hated wearers could excel
In valor's evidence; as knew
The hearts to touch of kindred true
That beat beneath the buff and blue.
Nor lacked they proof: from day to day
Skirmish and feint renewed the fray;
Till, in superior force of men
And ordnance, confident again,
The royal leader throws in vain
His gage of battle on the plain.
Thus stood they fronted: until—blind
Outmarched Cornwallis left behind—
On foeman, better matched in might,
The great Virginian moved, by night,
So swiftly that the morning light
Still deeper with the hue of blood
?Reddening the Royal colors showed
The hireling Hessians, where they stood,
?Holding, in force, the Northern road.
On Princeton's heights, their ordnance manned
By men with mastered eye and hand,
Stood silent; till the dusky wreath
Of marching infantry beneath
Came, winding upward, where, to sight,
In battery on the nearest height,
The cannon stand against the sky:
Then thunder!—but the death-bolt high
Above them crashed, and hurtled by,
Forward! and half the extent they gain,
Of the broad slope from hill to plain,
When falls again the iron rain
And pales the best, the boldest daunts.
The column halts: “Close, and advance,”
Said Washington, “Disarm at once
That height!”—no movement, no response;
Wavered the Pennsylvania line;
“Great God,” he said, “my life is thine!”
Few heard him, but each eye was strained,
When moving to the front, he reined
His charger in, and, wheeling, right
?Before the battery held him checked;
Like some grand statue in their sight
?He sat there silent, calm, erect,
Confronting death: one moment's hush,
Then with a whirlwind's sudden rush,
Before the battery once more
Can shake the summit with its roar,
Right up the hill, upon the run,
They charged, and captured every gun
On Princeton's heights: the day was won.
VI .

Suppose coincidence, or result;
Give the old reason, “Deus vult”;
The fact is certain: the twin days
Trenton and Princeton, in their blaze
Of native valor, mark the turn
In Freedom's fortunes; brighter burn
Her struggling stars; though clouds still lower,
No shrinking from the front of power!
Doubt and suspense, but not despair:
Lion and whelp their forest lair
Disputed still, but this, grown bold,
Feared not the giant, grim and old.
Boys marched to battle, dotards planned
High strategy, to save the land.
Women changed hearts with men, and one
Stood firm, to an abandoned gun,
Refilled with death its iron bore
Unflinching, waked its silent roar,
And lives in fame. Through hopes and fears
The war crept on, and tracked the years
With bloody footprints, till at last—
?Grandest of tyrannies overturned,
And noblest of free leagues surpassed—
?The sun of Yorktown rose and burned
In glory on the astral wreath
Of federal commonwealths beneath
The New World's banner, and—the sun
Of later fields for freedom won
Foretelling—with reflected glance
Shone on the chivalrous arms of France.
But grander is the form that stands
?Under the Princeton battery's frown
Than that which takes from Britain's hands
?The sword surrendered by the Crown
?And deathless title to renown.
VII .

To thee, old Nassau's honored Hall
?That, erstwhile, showed for many a day
The dint and scar of iron ball,
?Duteous, I dedicate my lay.
No laurel from thy wreath of fame
?It plucks, to tell how, though in war,
The Father of his country came,
?Led by his often clouded star,
To wrest from the invader's hand
?The home of Stockton, and the boon
Of new hope offer to that grand
?Unwavering Scot, gray Witherspoon.
And thou, old, glorious battle-land,
New Jersey, one who loves thy sand,
And owes thee much, could he repay
The debt with this historic lay,
Might say with greater bard, and bold,
“When courage is the theme, not gold
But song rewards, nor song alone”;
Nor fame I add, nor sculptured stone,
But the heart's tribute for a deed
Done in its terror, and the need
Of act spontaneous, undivined,
Forth-springing, god-like, from the mind;
As when one into flame or wave
Precipitates himself to save
Woman or child; nor stays to hold
Parley with death. Hence, from of old
Were heroes worshipped, and the strain
Heroic over warriors slain,
Or death-devoted by the will,
Shall be the world's grand music still
Rolled on and on. Not left untold,
Till memory lose its faltering hold,
A high-souled deed, forgot too long
In that great strain; and though my song
Be sung too late, or sung in vain,
And History or the Muse disdain,
Praise for the act shall live in praise
For other acts, in other days,
And Honor's self; and shall abide,
?In some memorial, with men,
While in the heart the crimson tide
?Of life shall ebb and flow again—
And glory wait on death and pain,
And speech articulate remain,
And Shakespeare live, and Homer reign.