Читать книгу Canadian Battlefields, and Other Poems - J. R. Wilkinson - Страница 22

Table of Contents

Fought November 11th, 1813. American Force, 2,000; British and Canadians, 800.

With his right resting on the St. Lawrence,

His left by a sheltering wood,

Morrison deployed his eight hundred

And in the clear field firmly stood;

Eight hundred firm British and Canadians,

Determinedly biding there,

With the Red Cross Banner above them,

Flaunting proudly in the crisp, cool air.

Well they knew that Boyd was advancing

With two thousand to crush their line;

But they stood like a wall, and as silent,

In that trying, momentous time.

Aye, for the moment before the battle

Far more dreadfully tries men’s souls

Than when thousands are falling about them,

And its madd’ning din round them rolls!

Then, too, it was an event momentous

For this fair Canada of ours—

So much on the stern issue depended,

So much on two desperate hours.

Nigh and nigher, wilder and higher,

To blaring trump and rolling drum,

Covering their front with a skirmish line,

On in war’s wild clamor they come!

“Fire not a shot till the word is given!

Let the proud foe draw very near;

Then, like an avalanche, sweep their blue ranks—

Remain steady, and have no fear!”

Thus Morrison cried to his thin red line,

Silently awaiting the word;

Though the foe had opened with clamorous roar,

Not a man in that firm line stirred.

At last the British the signal receive,

And a mighty blow is given;

A devastating rush of iron hail

Through the foeman’s ranks is driven.

And, oh! how that red line volleyed and flamed

Cool and steady, they fired low,

And crash after crash, in tumultuous din,

Fell on the suffering foe!

And for two consuming and fatal hours,

They struggled ’mid smoke and flame,

Till the earth was strewn with the gallant dead,

Where Boyd hurled his thousands in vain.

Then ruined and beaten, and punished sore,

He fled from defeat away;

Victory perched on our banners once more

On that ever-remembered day.

Canadian and British valor prevailed,

And down through the annals of time

Their heroic deeds we commemorate,

In hist’ry as jewels to shine.

O sunny land of the dear Maple Leaf,

In union abiding and free

Under the Old Flag of a thousand years,

Floating o’er us from sea to sea!