* * * * * THE FOREST leaves lay scattered cold and dead, | |
| Upon the withered grass that autumn morn, | |
| When with as withered hearts | |
| And hopes as dead and cold, | |
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| A gallant army formed their last array | 5 |
| Upon that field, in silence and deep gloom, | |
| And at their conqueror’s feet | |
| Laid their war-weapons down. | |
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| Sullen and stern, disarmed but not dishonored; | |
| Brave men, but brave in vain, they yielded there: | 10 |
| The soldier’s trial task | |
| Is not alone “to die.” | |
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| Honor to chivalry! the conqueror’s breath | |
| Stains not the ermine of his foeman’s fame, | |
| Nor mocks his captive’s doom— | 15 |
| The bitterest cup of war. | |
| |
| But be that bitterest cup the doom of all | |
| Whose swords are lightning flashes in the cloud | |
| Of the Invader’s wrath, | |
| Threatening a gallant land. | 20 |
| |
| His armies’ trumpet-tones wake not alone | |
| Her slumbering echoes: from a thousand hills | |
| Her answering voices shout, | |
| And her bells ring to arms! | |
| |
| Then danger hovers o’er the Invader’s march, | 25 |
| On raven wings, hushing the song of fame, | |
| And glory’s hues of beauty | |
| Fade from the cheek of death. | |
| |
| A foe is heard in every rustling leaf, | |
| A fortress seen in every rock and tree, | 30 |
| The eagle eye of art | |
| Is dim and powerless then, | |
| |
| And war becomes a people’s joy, the drum | |
| Man’s merriest music, and the field of death | |
| His couch of happy dreams, | 35 |
| After life’s harvest home. | |
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| He battles heart and arm, his own blue sky | |
| Above him, and his own green land around, | |
| Land of his father’s grave, | |
| His blessing and his prayers, | 40 |
| |
| Land where he learned to lisp a mother’s name, | |
| The first beloved in life, the last forgot, | |
| Land of his frolic youth, | |
| Land of his bridal eve, | |
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| Land of his children—vain your columned strength, | 45 |
| Invaders! vain your battles’ steel and fire! | |
| Choose ye the morrow’s doom— | |
| A prison or a grave. | |
| |
| And such were Saratoga’s victors—such | |
| The Yeomen-Brave, whose deeds and death have given | 50 |
| A glory to her skies, | |
| A music to her name. | |
| |
| In honorable life her fields they trod, | |
| In honorable death they sleep below; | |
| Their sons’ proud feelings here | 55 |
| Their noblest monuments. | |
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