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.

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