The Captain's Drum
by Benjamin Franklin Taylor�(1819�1887) |
 |
|
IN Pilgrim land, one Sabbath-day,
The winter lay like
sheep about
The ragged pastures mullein gray;
The
April sun shone in and out,
The showers swept by in
fitful flocks,
And eaves ticked fast like mantel clocks;
And now and then a wealthy cloud
Would wear a ribbon
broad and bright,
And now and then a wing�d crowd
Of
shivering azure flash in sight.
So rainbows bend, and
bluebirds fly,
And violets show their bits of sky.
To Enfield church throng all the town,
In quilted
hood and bombazine,
In beaver hat with flaring crown,
And quaint Vandyke and victorine;
And buttoned boys in
roundabout
From calyx collars blossom out;
Bandannas wave their feeble fire,
And foot-stoves tinkle
up the aisle;
A gray-haired elder leads the choir,
And
girls in linsey-woolsey smile.
So back to life the beings
glide
Whose very graves had ebbed and died.
One
hundred years have waned, and yet
We call the roll, and
not in vain,
For one whose flintlock musket set
The
echoes wild round Fort Duquesne,
And smelled the battle's
powder smoke
Ere Revolution's thunders woke.
Lo,
Thomas Abbe answers, "Here!"
Within the dull long-metre
place.
That day, upon the parson's ear,
And trampling
down his words of grace,
A horseman's gallop rudely beat
Along the splashed and empty street.
The rider drew
his dripping rein,
And then a letter, wasp-nest gray,
That ran: "The Concord minute-men
And red-coats had a
fight to-day!
To Captain Abbe this with speed."
Twelve
little words to tell the deed.
The captain read,
struck out for home
The old quickstep of battle born,
Slung on once more a battered drum
That bore a painted
unicorn,
Then right-about, as whirls a torch,
He stood
before the sacred porch.
And then a murmuring of bees
Broke in upon the house of prayer;
And then a wind-song
swept the trees,
And then a snarl from wolfish lair;
And then a charge of grenadiers,
And then a flight of
drum-beat cheers.
So drum and doctrine rudely blent,
The casements rattled strange accord;
No mortal knew what
either meant;
'T was double-drag and Holy Word,
Thus
saith the drum, and thus the Lord.
The captain raised so
wild a rout
He drummed the congregation out.
The
people gathered round amazed;
The soldier bared his head
and spoke,
And every sentence burned and blazed,
As
trenchant as a sabre stroke:
"'T is time to pick the
flint to-day,
To sling the knapsack, and away!
"The green of Lexington is red
With British red-coats,
brothers' blood!
In rightful cause the earliest dead
Are always best beloved of God.
Mark time! Now let the
march begin!
All bound for Boston fall right in!"
Then rub-a-dub the drum jarred on,
The throbbing roll of
battle beat;
"Fall in, my men!" and one by one
They
rhymed the tune with heart and feet.
And so they made a
Sabbath march
To glory 'neath the elm-tree arch.
The Continental line unwound
Along the churchyard's
breathless sod,
And holier grew the hallowed ground
Where Virtue slept and Valor trod.
Two hundred strong
that April day
They rallied out and marched away.
Brigaded there at Bunker Hill,
Their names are writ on
Glory's page.
The brave old captain's Sunday drill
Has
drummed its way across the age. |
By Benjamin Franklin Taylor�(1819�1887)
Listed May 19, 2014 |
|
Poem Use Permission Request
USA Patriotism! cannot
provide use permission for a poem or an author's email address
if not listed below the poem. Only the author or a legal
representative can grant permission. Try a search engine to find the
author's contact information for a use permission request or if
it is available for public use.
Note: Poems authored in the
1700s and 1800s can be used with reference to the author. |
Comment on this poem |
|
| | |
|
|
War and Tragedy Poems | Poem Categories |
|
