Admiral Hosier's Ghost "Heed, oh, heed our fatal story! I am Hosier's injured ghost; You now triumph free from fears, You will mix your joys with tears. "See these mournful spectres sweeping Ghastly o'er this hated wave, 2349 Whose wan cheeks are stained with weeping; Mark those numbers, pale and horrid, "I, by twenty sail attended, Did this Spanish town affright; I had cast them with disdain, "For resistance I could fear none; Then the Bastimentos never Had our foul dishonor seen, Nor the sea the sad receiver Of this gallant train had been. "Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismaying, To have fallen, my country crying, "Unrepining at thy glory, Thy successful arms we hail; We recall our shameful doom, "O'er these waves forever mourning When your patriot friends you see, Think on vengeance for my ruin, And for England-shamed in me.” FONTENOY [APRIL 30, 1745] THRICE at the huts of Fontenoy the English column failed, And twice the lines of Saint Antoine the Dutch in vain as sailed; For town and slope were filled with fort and flanking battery, And well they swept the English ranks and Dutch auxiliary. Fontenoy 2351 As vainly through De Barri's wood the British soldiers burst, The French artillery drove them back, diminished and dispersed. The bloody Duke of Cumberland beheld with anxious eye, Six thousand English veterans in stately column tread; Their cannon blaze in front and flank, Lord Hay is at their head. Steady they step a-down the slope, steady they climb the hill, Steady they load, steady they fire, moving right onward still, Betwixt the wood and Fontenoy, as through a furnace blast, Through rampart, trench, and palisade, and bullets showering fast; And on the open plain above they rose and kept their course, With ready fire and grim resolve that mocked at hostile force: Past Fontenoy, past Fontenoy, while thinner grow their ranks, They break, as broke the Zuyder Zee through Holland's ocean-banks. More idly than the summer flies, French tirailleurs rush round; As stubble to the lava-tide, French squadrons strew the ground; Bombshell and grape and round-shot tore, still on they marched and fired; Fast, from each volley, grenadier and voltigeur retired. “Push on my household cavalry!" King Louis madly cried. To death they rush, but rude their shock; not unavenged they died. On through the camp the column trod-King Louis turns his rein. “Not yet, my liege," Saxe interposed; “the Irish troops re main." And Fontenoy, famed Fontenoy, had been a Waterloo, true. "Lord Clare," he said, “you have your wish; there are your Saxon foes!" The Marshal almost smiles to see, so furiously he goes. How fierce the look these exiles wear, who're wont to be so gay! The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their hearts today: The treaty broken, ere the ink wherewith 'twas writ could dry; Their plundered homes, their ruined shrines, their women's parting cry; Their priesthood hunted down like wolves, their country overthrown Each looks as if revenge for all were staked on him alone. were. O'Brien's voice is hoarse with joy, as, halting, he commands: "Fix bayonets-charge!" Like mountain-storm rush on those fiery bands. Thin is the English column now, and faint their volleys grow, Yet, mustering all the strength they have, they make a gallant show. They dress their ranks upon the hill, to face that battlewind! Their bayonets the breakers' foam, like rocks the men behind! One volley crashes from their line, when, through the surging smoke, With empty guns clutched in their hands, the headlong Irish broke. On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, hark to that fierce huzza: "Revenge! remember Limerick! dash down the Sacsanagh!" Lament for Culloden 2353 Like lions leaping at a fold, when mad with hunger's pang, Right up against the English line the Irish exiles sprang; Bright was their steel, 'tis bloody now, their guns are filled with gore; Through shattered ranks and severed files and trampled flags they tore. The English strove with desperate strength, paused, rallied, staggered, fled; The green hillside is matted close with dying and with dead. Across the plain and far away passed on that hideous wrack, Thomas Osborne Davis [1814-1845] LAMENT FOR CULLODEN [APRIL 16, 1746] THE lovely lass o' Inverness, Their winding-sheet the bluidy clay, Robert Burns [1759-1796] |