William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.
An Elegy on the Burning of FairfieldColonel David Humphreys (17521818)
Y
Ye ashes warm, which drink the tears that flow—
Ye desolated plains, my voice inspire,
And give soft music to the song of wo!
Rose thy tall spires, and oped thy social halls!
How oft my bosom beat with pure delight,
At yonder spot where stand the darken’d walls!
A silent sadness through the streets prevails:
The distant main alone is heard to roar,
And hollow chimneys hum with sullen gales—
Which, rustling, hovers round the faded green—
Save where, at twilight, mourners frequent tread,
Mid recent graves, o’er desolation’s scene.
These glooms funereal, with thy former bloom,
Thy hospitable rites when Tryon shared,
Long ere he sealed thy melancholy doom!
Defenceless domes and hallow’d fanes to dust;
Beheld, with sneering smile, the wounded bleed,
And spurr’d his bands to rapine, blood, and lust.
To touch his feelings, or to sooth his rage—
Vain the fair drop that roll’d from beauty’s eye,
Vain the dumb grief of supplicating age.
Or make his deeds survive in Glory’s page?
Could Britons seek of savages the fame,
Or deem it conquest, thus the war to wage?
Extend wide havoc, spurn the insulted foes;
The insulted foes to tenfold vengeance rise—
Resistance growing as the danger grows.
The visionary shapes before me stand—
The thunder bursts, the battle burns again,
And kindling fires encrimson all the strand.
In blackening volumes o’er the landscape bend:
Here the broad splendour blazes high to heaven—
There, umber’d streams in purple pomp ascend.
Emitting sparks, the lighter fragments fly:
With frightful crash the burning mansion falls,
The works of years in glowing embers lie.
Clouds tinged with dyes intolerably bright:
Behold, well-pleased, the village wrapp’d in fire!
Let one wide ruin glut thy ravish’d sight!
See age and sickness, tremulously slow,
Creep from the flames—see babes in torture die,
And mothers swoon in agonies of wo.
The infant’s terror, and the captive’s pain,
Where no bold bands can check thy cursed career—
Mix fire with blood on each unguarded plain!
Daughters of memory, raise the deathless songs!
Repeat through endless years his hated name—
Embalm his crimes, and teach the world our wrongs.