Poems / William Cullen Bryant [electronic text]

SEVENTY-SIX.

WHAT heroes from the woodland sprung, When, through the fresh awakened land, The thrilling cry of freedom rung, And to the work of warfare strung The yeoman's iron hand!

Hills flung the cry to hills around, And ocean-mart replied to mart, And streams, whose springs were yet unfound Pealed far away the starling sound Into the forest's heart.

Then marched the brave from rocky steep, From mountain river swift and cold; The borders of the stormy deep, The vales where gathered waters sleep, Sent up the strong and bold.

As if the very earth again Grew quick with God's creating breath And, from the sods of grove and glen, Rose ranks of lion-hearted men To battle to the death.

The wife, whose babe first smiled that day The fair fond bride of yestereve, And aged sire and matron gray, Saw the loved warriors haste away, And deemed it sin to grieve.

Already had the strife begun; Already blood on Concord's plain Along the springing grass had run, And blood had flowed at Lexington, Like brooks of April rain.

That death-stain on the vernal sward Hallowed to freedom all the shore; In fragments fell the yoke abhorred— The footstep of a foreign lord Profaned the soil no more.