Here's the spot. Look around you. Above on the height Lay the Hessians encamped. By that church on the right Stood the gaunt Jersey farmers. And here ran a wall,--You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball.
Nothing more. Grasses spring, waters run, flowers blow, Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago.
Nothing more, did I say? Stay one moment: you've heard Of Caldwell, the parson, who once preached the word Down at Springfield? What, no? Come--that's bad; why, he had All the Jerseys aflame! And they gave him the name Of the "rebel high priest." He stuck in their gorge, For he loved the Lord God--and he hated King George!
He had cause, you might say! When the Hessians that day Marched up with Knyphausen, they stopped on their way At the "farms," where his wife, with a child in her arms, Sat alone in the house. How it happened none knew But God--and that one of the hireling crew Who fired the shot! Enough!--there she lay, And Caldwell, the chaplain, her husband, away!
Did he preach--did he pray? Think of him as you stand By the old church to-day,--think of him and his band Of militant ploughboys! See the smoke and the heat Of that reckless advance, of that straggling retreat!
Keep the ghost of that wife, foully slain, in your view--And what could you, what should you, what would YOU do?
Why, just what HE did! They were left in the lurch For the want of more wadding. He ran to the church, Broke the door, stripped the pews, and dashed out in the road With his arms full of hymn-books, and threw down his load At their feet! Then above all the shouting and shots Rang his voice: "Put Watts into 'em! Boys, give 'em Watts!"
And they did. That is all. Grasses spring, flowers blow, Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago.
You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball--But not always a hero like this--and that's all.
POEM
DELIVERED ON THE FOURTEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF CALIFORNIA'S ADMISSION
INTO THE UNION, SEPTEMBER 9, 1864
We meet in peace, though from our native East The sun that sparkles on our birthday feast Glanced as he rose on fields whose dews were red With darker tints than those Aurora spread.
Though shorn his rays, his welcome disk concealed In the dim smoke that veiled each battlefield, Still striving upward, in meridian pride, He climbed the walls that East and West divide,--Saw his bright face flashed back from golden sand, And sapphire seas that lave the Western land.
Strange was the contrast that such scenes disclose From his high vantage o'er eternal snows;
There War's alarm the brazen trumpet rings--Here his love-song the mailed cicala sings;
There bayonets glitter through the forest glades--Here yellow cornfields stack their peaceful blades;
There the deep trench where Valor finds a grave--Here the long ditch that curbs the peaceful wave;
There the bold sapper with his lighted train--Here the dark tunnel and its stores of gain;
Here the full harvest and the wain's advance--There the Grim Reaper and the ambulance.
With scenes so adverse, what mysterious bond Links our fair fortunes to the shores beyond?
Why come we here--last of a scattered fold--To pour new metal in the broken mould?
To yield our tribute, stamped with Caesar's face, To Caesar, stricken in the market-place?
Ah! love of country is the secret tie That joins these contrasts 'neath one arching sky;
Though brighter paths our peaceful steps explore, We meet together at the Nation's door.
War winds her horn, and giant cliffs go down Like the high walls that girt the sacred town, And bares the pathway to her throbbing heart, From clustered village and from crowded mart.
Part of God's providence it was to found A Nation's bulwark on this chosen ground;
Not Jesuit's zeal nor pioneer's unrest Planted these pickets in the distant West, But He who first the Nation's fate forecast Placed here His fountains sealed for ages past, Rock-ribbed and guarded till the coming time Should fit the people for their work sublime;
When a new Moses with his rod of steel Smote the tall cliffs with one wide-ringing peal, And the old miracle in record told To the new Nation was revealed in gold.
Judge not too idly that our toils are mean, Though no new levies marshal on our green;
Nor deem too rashly that our gains are small, Weighed with the prizes for which heroes fall.
See, where thick vapor wreathes the battle-line;
There Mercy follows with her oil and wine;
Or where brown Labor with its peaceful charm Stiffens the sinews of the Nation's arm.
What nerves its hands to strike a deadlier blow And hurl its legions on the rebel foe?
Lo! for each town new rising o'er our State See the foe's hamlet waste and desolate, While each new factory lifts its chimney tall, Like a fresh mortar trained on Richmond's wall.
For this, O brothers, swings the fruitful vine, Spread our broad pastures with their countless kine:
For this o'erhead the arching vault springs clear, Sunlit and cloudless for one half the year;
For this no snowflake, e'er so lightly pressed, Chills the warm impulse of our mother's breast.
Quick to reply, from meadows brown and sere, She thrills responsive to Spring's earliest tear;
Breaks into blossom, flings her loveliest rose Ere the white crocus mounts Atlantic snows;
And the example of her liberal creed Teaches the lesson that to-day we heed.
Thus ours the lot with peaceful, generous hand To spread our bounty o'er the suffering land;
As the deep cleft in Mariposa's wall Hurls a vast river splintering in its fall,--Though the rapt soul who stands in awe below Sees but the arching of the promised bow, Lo! the far streamlet drinks its dews unseen, And the whole valley wakes a brighter green.
MISS BLANCHE SAYS
And you are the poet, and so you want Something--what is it?--a theme, a fancy?
Something or other the Muse won't grant To your old poetical necromancy;
