MONTEREY
by: Charles Fenno Hoffman
(1806-1884)
- E were not
many -- we who stood
- Before the iron sleet that day--
- Yet many a gallant spirit would
- Give half his years if he then could
- Have been with us at Monterey.
-
- Now here, now there, the shot, it hailed
- In deadly drifts of fiery spray,
- Yet not a single soldier quailed
- When wounded comrades round them wailed
- Their dying shout at Monterey.
-
- And on -- still on our column kept
- Through walls of flame its withering way;
- Where fell the dead, the living stept,
- Still charging on the guns which swept
- The slippery streets of Monterey.
-
- The foe himself recoiled aghast,
- When, striking where he strongest lay,
- We swooped his flanking batteries past,
- And braving full their murderous blast,
- Stormed home the towers of Monterey.
-
- Our banners on those turrets wave,
- And there our evening bugles play;
- Where orange boughs above their grave
- Keep green the memory of the brave
- Who fought and fell at Monterey.
-
- We are not many -- we who pressed
- Beside the brave who fell that day;
- But who of us has not confessed
- He'd rather share their warrior rest,
- Than not have been at Monterey?
"Monterey" is reprinted
from The Little Book of American Poets: 1787-1900. Ed.
Jessie B. Rittenhouse. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1915. |
MORE POEMS BY CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN |
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