James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
April 20The Sudbury Fight
By Wallace Rice (18591939)Y
Ye children of New England, holding dear your fathers’ fame,
Hear tell of Sudbury’s battle through a day of death and flame!
Upon the town at springtide when the skies denied us rain,
We see their shadows lurking in the forest’s dusky deep,
And speed the sorry tidings past dry field and rustling lane:
Come hastily or never when the wild beast lusts for gore
And send your best and bravest if you wish to see us more!
Content in homes and farmsteads, busy marts and buzzing mills
From the Atlantic’s roaring to the tranquil Berkshire hills.
Their wives and babes in safety, toil to save their little all;
They fetch their slender food-stores, drive indoors their scanty herds,
They clean the bell-mouthed musket, melt the lead and mould the ball;
Please God they’ll keep their battle till their countrymen shall haste
With succor from the eastward, iron-hearted, flinty-faced.
The dawn of Independence did King Philip’s devils spring
Through April on the little town, like wolves a-ravening.
And howl about the houses in the little frontier town;
Our garrisons hold steady while the flames by breezes fanned
Disclose the painted demons, fierce and cunning, lithe and brown;
At every loophole firing, women near at hand to load,
The children bringing bullets, thus the Sudbury men abode.
Beside their grandsire’s settle, listening to the droning hum
Of this old tale, with backward glances, open-mouthed and dumb.
Along the tawny upland where stout Haynes keeps faithful guard
From Watertown comes Mason, young in everything but years—
Our men rush down to meet him; then, together, swift and hard,
They force the Indians backward to the Musketaquid’s side,
And slaying, ever slaying, drive them o’er the reddened tide.
In vain the braves attack them, thick as saplings in the wood.
Praise God for men so valiant, who have such a foe withstood!
Their stealthy ambush keeping as the Concord men draw near,
To dart with hideous noises as they reach the lower ford,
A thousand ’gainst a dozen; but their every life costs dear
As, sinking ’neath such numbers, one by one our neighbors fail—
One sole survivor in his blood brings on the dreadful tale.
Speeds Wadsworth with his soldiers, forth from Boston, spent and worn,
And Brocklebank at Marlboro’ joins that little hope forlorn.
All weariness forgotten, on they hasten in relief;
They see the braves before them—with a cheer the little group
Bends down and charges forward; from above the cunning chief
His wild-cat eyes dilating, sees his bushes bloom with fire,
The tree-trunks at his bidding blaze with fiendish lust and ire.
Exulting, aiming, flaming, happy in our coming rout;
But Wadsworth never pauses, every musket ringing out.
Defiant through the coppice till upon the summit placed;
With every bullet counting, there they load and aim and slay,
Against all comers warring, iron-hearted, flinty-faced;
Hold Philip as for scorning, drive him down the bloodstained slope,
And stand there, firm and dauntless, steadfast in their faith and hope.
The certain reinforcements, and black night the foe to chill,
An hour or less and hideous Death might have been baffled still.
The flames dance up the hillside, in their rear less savage foes.
No courage can avail us, down the slope the English pass—
A day in flame beginning lights with hell its awful close,
As swifter, louder, fiercer o’er the crest the reek runs past
And headlong hurls bold Wadsworth, conquered by the cruel blast.
The panther heart of Philip drives the English to despair,
As scalping-knife and tomahawk gleam in th’ affrighted glare.
Within the stone mill’s shelter fights the remnant of their force;
When swift upon the foemen, rushing through the gathering gloom,
Cheer Crowell’s men from Brookfield, gallant Prentice with his horse!
And Mason from the river, and Haynes join in the fight,
Till Philip’s host is routed, hurled on shrieking through the night.
Our speedy vengeance glutted on the flower of his men;
In pomp and pride the Wampanoags ne’er shall march again.
The King of Pocanoket has received their stern command;
Their lives were laid down gladly at their country’s trumpet-call,
And on their savage foemen have they set the heavier hand;
Against our day-long valor was the red man’s fortune spent
And that one day at Sudbury has saved a continent.
The sons of Massachusetts sleep, as here beneath her trees,
Nor Brocklebank nor Wadsworth is the first or last of these.
Where suns and clouds of April have their balmy power sped;
Oh, greening woods and meadows, pleasant ponds and babbling streams,
And clematis soft-blooming where War once his banners led;
How hungers many an exile for that homeland far away,
And all the happy dreaming of a bygone April day!
We praise our fathers’ valor, and our fathers’ prayer is prayed,
That, fearing God’s Wrath only, firm may stand the State they made.