Unless the storm should pass, or pause,
Which hangs in thunder o'er the land,
Ere set of many suns, your hand
May do good service in our cause.
All night the well-piled fire must glow,
All night the molten lead be poured,
Our guns re-cleaned, re-sharped the sword,
In honor of the approaching foe;
And if it be, as beldames say,
The devil feasts when tyrants fall,
Let his infernal board straightway
Be spread, with room enough for all!"
ROUND all the wide horizon's bar
There lay no growing cloud to mar
The brightness of the autumn day;
And yet the soft air felt the jar
Of thunder rolling from afar,(6)
And shuddered in its pale dismay.
Berkley, with anxious eye and ear,
Stood on the southern porch to hear,
Disturbed with many a doubt and fear,
As rolled the distant roaring in;
Then to his tower he mounted high,
And searched through all the cloudless sky:
All, all was clear, while still came by
The rumble of the constant din.
Was direful war the sudden source?
Was it for this the rebel force
Had ta'en but now their southward course?
The sound his fears too well define!
It is, it is the cannon's mouth!
Its awful answer from the south
Bears tidings of the roaring ranks
That crash upon the trembling banks,
The crimson banks, of Brandywine.
Pale Esther, in that gloomy tower,
Strained her sad vision's fruitless power:
On every sound she seemed to hear
The shout and groan together swell;
every burst that came more clear,
She deemed her hero Edgar fell,-
Fell, and perchance had breathed his last
Long ere the death-announcing blast,
Speeding through miles of frighted air,
His dying sigh to her could bear.
Still hearkening, gazing far abroad,
Some sign of triumph to discover,
All day she poured her prayer to God
To shield her country and her lover.
And Berkley, listening to the fight,
Remembered Trenton's direful night,
And that it was the same fierce train
Whose lengthy line he saw of late
Pour from the city o'er the plain,
Led by a leader bold and great,
Who now upon that roaring field
Might cause once more their flag to yield.
His heart, misgiving, sank away,
Shuddering through the doubtful day :
And should the rebels win, what then?
The troops were bold and desperate men:
And he remembered with affright
The terrors of that startling night
What time a rude and lawless crew
(All such he deemed the patriot lines) Intruded on his midnight view
And drank his dearest, noblest wines: His frame was agued through and through Lest that wild scene should come anew.
"Ho! gardener, hostler, coachman !-ho!
Each man whose hand can wield a spade!
A place of safety must be made:
Bring shovels, hoes, and picks, and show
How you can ply the digging trade." When Berkley's will was thus conveyed, Down came the gardener and his man,
The hostler and the hostler's lad, The coachman and the footman ran, And each his delving orders had.
"Dig me a pit!" the master cried,
"And let it be both deep and wide,
As 'twere a grave that might contain
A score or more of rebels slain.
But they for whom this grave is made
Belong unto a nobler grade,
With better blood than ever ran
In purple veins of outlaw clan.
Their royal genealogic lines
Come down the Old World's antique vines:
Ho, butler! my good sacristan,
Bear out our monarch king of wines,
Old Port, in all his purple pride,
With queenly Sherry at his side,
Followed by all their loyal train,
The brave, light-hearted German knights
Whose birth was on the Rhenish heights,
The well-beloved of Charlemagne,
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