Classic Poem

The battle comes again. The charging host
Are Britons — chosen ones — their army's boast.
Reddening they come in martyrdom to Fame;
Shaking their snowy plumes in cloud and flame.
Bravely their banner is abroad outspread —
Alive their meteor, and their shroud when dead.
The tumult deepens. Swell conflicting cries:
Neigh the loud steeds, and hurried sobs arise.
Shakes that dark hill with cataracts of fire:
Up go that army to their blazing pyre!
The cannon's voice is mute. The lightning sheet
Grows dim again. Warriors with warriors meet, —
And wrestle fiercely in their rolling cloud.
Again the mountain shakes! Again the light
Comes thundering loudly down — the blazing flight
Of starry banners are abroad again,
And neighing — plunging — o'er the clouded plain,
Goes many a fiery barb with crimson reeking mane:
Again the meteors of the war are bowed:
Again the mountain heaves beneath its shroud:
Gushes with quenchless light and shakes and storms aloud.

So darkly clouded was that hill with smoke,
Save when the vast artillery day-light broke,
It seemed a midnight altar. From its gloom,
There came the noise of strife as from a tomb.
And then, distinct, amidst the spreading light
Were seen the struggling champions of the fight,
In silent — desperate — dreadful bayonet strife:
The midnight slaughter! When the hero's life —
The high — stern summons that he gives his band —
His waving falchion — and extended hand —
His towering plume — his charger's bloody mane —
The battle-anthem and the bugle strain —
Are beamless — lifeless! Heard and seen no more:
Thus 'tis when bayonets hush the cannon's roar.
The blazing would be gone! And with it, lo!
These darkly wrestling groups would come and go,
Like wizard shapes at night upon the snow —
That glitters to the moon upon some mountain's brow.

So stood the battle. Bravely it was fought.
Lions and Eagles met. That hill was bought,
And sold in desperate combat. Wrapped in flame,
Died these idolaters of bannered Fame.
Three times that meteor hill was bravely lost —
Three times " twas bravely won; while madly tost,
Encountering red plumes in the dusky air:
While Slaughter shouted in her bloody lair.
And specters blew their horns and shook their whistling hair!