Hannah Flagg Gould (1789–1865)

WITH cherub smile the prattling boy,

Who on the veteran’s breast reclines,

Has thrown aside his favourite toy,

And round his tender finger twines

Those scatter’d locks, that with the flight

Of fourscore years are snowy white;

And, as a scar arrests his view,

He cries, “Grandpa’, what wounded you?”

“My child, ’tis five-and-fifty years

This very day, this very hour,

Since from a scene of blood and tears,

Where valour fell by hostile power,

I saw retire the setting sun

Behind the hills of Lexington;

While pale and lifeless on the plain

My brothers lay, for freedom slain!

“And ere that fight, the first that spoke

In thunder to our land, was o’er,

Amid the clouds of fire and smoke

I felt my garments wet with gore!

’Tis since that dread and wild affray,

That trying, dark, eventful day,

From this calm April eve so far,

I wear upon my cheek the scar.

“When thou to manhood shalt be grown,

And I am gone in dust to sleep,

May freedom’s rights be still thine own,

And thou and thine in quiet reap

The unblighted product of the toil

In which my blood bedew’d the soil!

And while those fruits thou shalt enjoy,

Bethink thee of this scar, my boy.

“But, should thy country’s voice be heard

To bid her children fly to arms,

Gird on thy grandsire’s trusty sword;

And, undismay’d by war’s alarms,

Remember, on the battle-field,

I made the hand of God my shield:

And be thou spared, like me, to tell

What bore thee up, while others fell.”