Where orange boughs above their
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 ?
FROM the Rio Grande's waters to the icy lakes of Maine,
Let all exult! for we have met the enemy again—
Beneath their stern old mountains, we have met them in their
And rolled from Buena Vista back the battle's bloody tide:
Where the enemy came surging, like the Mississippi's flood;
And the reaper, Death, was busy, with his sickle red with blood.
Santa Anna boasted loudly, that before two hours were past,
His lancers through Saltillo should pursue us thick and fast:
On came his solid regiments, line marching after line;
Lo! their great standards in the sun like sheets of silver shine!
With thousands upon thousands, yea, with more than four to one,
A forest of bright bayonets gleams fiercely in the sun!
Upon them with your squadrons, May!-Out leaps the flaming steel!
Before his serried column, how the frightened lancers reel! They flee amain.-Now to the left, to stay their triumph there, Or else the day is surely lost in horror and despair:
For their hosts are pouring swiftly on, like a river in the springOur flank is turned, and on our left their cannon thundering.
Now, brave artillery! Bold dragoons !-Steady, my men, and calm!
Through rain, cold, hail, and thunder; now nerve each gallant arm! What though their shot falls round us here, still thicker than the hail!
We'll stand against them, as the rock stands firm against the gale.
Lo!-their battery is silenced now: our iron hail still showers:
They falter, halt, retreat!-Hurra! the glorious day is ours!
Now charge again, Santa Anna! or the day is surely lost;
For back, like broken waves, along our left your hordes are tossed.
Still louder roar two batteries—his strong reserve moves on ;—
More work is there before you, men, ere the good fight is won;
Now for your wives and children stand! steady, my braves,
once more!
Now for your lives, your honor, fight! as you never fought before.
Ho! Hardin breasts it bravely!-McKee and Bissell there
Stand firm before the storm of balls that fills the astonished air.
The lancers are upon them, too!—the foe swarms ten to one—
Hardin is slain-McKee and Clay the last time see the sun;
And many another gallant heart, in that last desperate fray,
Grew cold, its last thoughts turning to its loved ones far away.
Still sullenly the cannon roared-but died away at last ;
And o'er the dead and dying came the evening shadows fast,
And then above the mountains rose the cold moon's silver
And patiently and pityingly looked down upon the field;-
And careless of his wounded, and neglectful of his dead,
Desparingly and sullen, in the night, Santa Anna fled.
I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars Did wander, darkling, in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind, and blackening, in the moonless air;
Morn came, and went-and came, and brought no day;
And men forgot their passions, in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light.
And hid their eyes, and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up,
With mad disquietude, on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again,
With curses, cast them down upon the dust,
And gnashed their teeth, and howled.
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings: the wildest brutes
Came tame, and tremulous; and vipers crawled
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless-they were slain for food.
The meager by the meager were devoured;
Even dogs assailed their masters—all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds, and beasts, and famished men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But, with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress-he died.
The crowd was famished by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies; they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place,
Where had been heaped a mass of holy things,
For an unholy usage: they raked up,
And, shivering, scraped, with their cold skeleton hands,
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame,
Which was a mockery: then they lifted
Their eyes, as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects: saw, and shrieked, and died.
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written fiend. The world was void;
The populous and the powerful was a lump-
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless;
A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths:
Ships, sailorless, lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped,
They slept, on the abyss, without a surge:
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave;
The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perished: darkness had no need
Of aid from them; she was the universe.
To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er, or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock, that never needs a fold;
Alone, o'er steeps and foaming folds to lean ;—
This is not solitude; 'tis but to hold
Converse with nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.
But, midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless
Minions of splendor, shrinking from distress!
None, that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less,
Of all that flattered, followed, sought, and sued ;-
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!
"BRING forth the horse!"-the horse was brought;
In truth, he was a noble steed,
A Tartar of the Ukraine breed,
Who looked as though the speed of thought
Were in his limbs; but he was wild,
Wild as the wild deer, and untaught,
With spur and bridle undefiled-
'Twas but a day he had been caught;
And snorting with erected mane,
And struggling fiercely, but in vain,
In the full foam of wrath and dread,
To me the desert-born was led :
They bound me on, that menial throng,
Upon his back with many a thong;
They loosed him with a sudden lash:
Away! away!-and on we dash !—
Torrents less rapid and less rash.
Away, away, my steed and I,
Upon the pinions of the wind,
All human dwellings left behind;
We sped like meteors through the sky,
When with its crackling sound, the night
Is checkered with the northern light;
Town,-village,-none were on our track,
But a wild plain of far extent,
And bounded by a forest black;
The sky was dull, and dim, and gray,
And a low breeze crept moaning by:
I could have answered with a sigh;
But fast we fled, away, away,
And I could neither sigh nor pray;
And my cold sweat-drops fell, like rain,
Upon the courser's bristling mane.
We neared the wild-wood-'twas so wide,
I saw no bounds on either side ;-
The boughs gave way, and did not tear
My limbs, and I found strength to bear
My wounds, already scarred with cold-
My bonds forbade to loose my hold.
We rustled through the leaves like wind,
Left shrubs, and trees, and wolves behind.
By night I heard them on my track:
Their troop came hard upon our back,
With their long gallop, which can tire
The hound's deep hate, and hunter's fire:
Where'er we flew they followed on,
Nor left us with the morning sun.
Oh! how I wished for spear or sword,
At least to die amidst the horde,
And perish, if it must be so,
At bay, destroying many a foe.
My heart turned sick, my brain grew sore, And throbbed a while, then beat no more.
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