totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power.

Three millions of People, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, Sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of Nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, Sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat it, Sir, let it come!

It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace!—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that Gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

24. A Cluster of Poems About the Revolution.— The stirring events of the revolutionary war have inspired

THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL, JUNE 17, 1775

This is from Trumbull's painting. It represents the moment when the British finally carried the American entrenchments, just as General
Warren fell.

many poems, many vivid works of fiction, and many of the finest orations in our language. A couple of the orations have been given. There now follow a few of the poems.

Bunker Hill

B. F. TAYLOR *

To the wail of the fife and the snarl of the drum
Those Hedgers and Ditchers of Bunker Hill come,
Down out of the battle with rumble and roll,
Straight across the two ages, right into the soul,
And bringing for captive the Day that they won
With a deed that like Joshua halted the sun.

Like bells in their towers tolled the guns from the town,
Beat that low earthen bulwark so sullen and brown,
As if Titans last night had plowed the one bout
And abandoned the field for a Yankee redoubt;
But for token of life that the parapet gave

They might as well play on Miles Standish's grave!
Then up the green hill rolled the red of the Georges

And down the green vale rolled the grime of the forges;
Ten rods from the ridges hung the live surge,
Not a murmur to meet it broke over the verge,
But the click of flint-locks in the furrows along,
And the chirp of a sparrow just singing her song.
In the flash of an eye, as the dead shall be raised,
The dull bastion kindled, the parapet blazed,

And the musketry cracked, glowing hotter and higher,

Like a forest of hemlock, its lashes of fire,

*Benjamin Franklin Taylor was the son of a professor in the college now called Colgate University, in the state of New York. There he was educated, and thence he went to devote himself to journalism and literary work. He died in 1887.

And redder the scarlet and riven the ranks,

And Putnam's guns hung, with a roar on the flanks.
Now the battle grows dumb and the grenadiers wheel,
'Tis the crash of clubbed musket, the thrust of cold steel,
At bay all the way, while the guns held their breath,
Foot to foot, eye to eye, with each other and Death.
Call the roll, Sergeant Time! Match the day if you can;
Waterloo was for Britons-Bunker Hill is for man!

* Warren's Address to the American Soldiers at Bunker Hill

JOHN PIERPONT†

STAND! the ground's your own, my braves!

Will ye give it up to slaves?

Will ye look for greener graves?

Hope ye mercy still ?

What's the mercy despots feel ?

Hear it in that battle peal!

Read it on yon bristling steel !

Ask it, ye who will.

Fear ye foes who kill for hire?

Will ye to your homes retire?

Look behind you! they're afire!

And before you, see

Who have done it !-From the vale

On they come !-And will ye quail ?—

Leaden rain and iron hail

Let their welcome be !

* General Joseph Warren fought at the battle of Bunker Hill as a volunteer, declining to take command. He was killed just as the Americans were retreating.

+ The Rev. John Pierpont was born in Connecticut in 1785, was graduated at Yale College; was a lawyer, merchant, clergyman, and poet. He died in 1866.

In the God of battles trust!
Die we may,-and die we must;
But, O, where can dust to dust
Be consigned so well,

As where Heaven its dews shall shed
On the martyred patriot's bed,

And the rocks shall raise their head,

Of his deeds to tell!

Song of Marion's Men

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT *

OUR band is few, but true and tried,
Our leader frank and bold;

The British soldier trembles

When Marion's name is told.

Our fortress is the good greenwood,
Our tent the cypress-tree;
We know the forest round us

As seamen know the sea.

We know its walls of thorny vines,
Its glades of reedy grass,

Its safe and silent islands
Within the dark morass.

Woe to the English soldiery
That little dread us near!
On them shall light at midnight
A strange and sudden fear :

* William Cullen Bryant, born in Massachusetts in 1797, was an American poet and journalist. He was a student at Williams College, but did not remain to graduate. His most famous poem was "Thanatopsis." He died in 1878.