Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

“ Round the barges gliding onward blushed like blood along their tracks.
So they crossed to the other border, and again they formed in order;
And the boats came back for soldiers, came for soldiers, soldiers still:
The time seemed everlasting to us women faint and fasting, —
At last they’re moving, marching, marching proudly up the hill.
We can see the bright steel glancing all along the lines advancing —
Now the front rank fires a volley —they have thrown away their shot;
For behind their earthwork lying, all the balls above them flying,
Our people need not hurry ”

“ I had heard the muskets’ rattle of the April running battle;
Lord Percy’s [1] hunted soldiers, I can see their red coats still;
But a deadly chill comes o’er me, as the day looms up before me,
When a thousand men lay bleeding on the slopes of Bunker’s Hill. ”

“ Have our soldiers got faint-hearted, and in noiseless haste departed?
Are they panic-struck and helpless? Are they palsied or asleep?
Now! the walls they’re almost under! scarce a rod the foes asunder!
Not a firelock flashed against them! up the earthwork they will swarm!
But the words have scarce been spoken, when the ominous calm is broken,
And a bellowing crash has emptied all the vengeance in the storm!
So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted backwards to the water,
Fly Pigot’s [4] running heroes and the frightened braves of Howe ”