No song of a soldier riding down
To the raging fight of Winchester town;
No song of a time that shook the earth
With the nation’s throe at a nation’s birth;
But the song of a brave man free from fear
As Sheridan’s self or Paul Revere;
Who risked what they risked,--free from strife
And its promise of glorious pay,--his life.
The peaceful valley has waked and stirred,
And the answering echoes of life are heard;
The dew still clings to the trees and grass,
And the early toilers smiling pass,
As they glance aside at the white-walled homes,
Or up the valley where merrily comes
The brook that sparkles in diamond rills
As the sun comes over the Hampshire hills.
What was it passed like an ominous breath?
Like a shiver of fear, or a touch of death?
What was it? The valley is peaceful still,
And the leaves are afire on the top of the hill;
It was not a sound, nor a thing of sense,--
But a pain, like a pang in the short suspense
That wraps the being of those who see
At their feet the gulf of eternity.
The air of the valley has felt the chill;
The workers pause at the door of the mill;
The housewife, keen to the shivering air,
Arrests her foot on the cottage stair,
Instinctive taught by the mother-love,
And thinks of the sleeping ones above.
Why start the listeners? Why does the course
Of the mill-stream widen? Is it a horse--
“Hark to the sound of the hoofs!” they say--
That gallops so wildly Williamsburg way?
God! what was that like a human shriek
From the winding valley? Will nobody speak?
Will nobody answer those women who cry
As the awful warnings thunder by?
Whence come they? Listen! and now they hear
The sound of the galloping horse-hoofs near;
They watch the trend of the vale, and see
The rider who thunders so menacingly,
With waving arms and warning scream
To the home-filled banks of the valley stream.
He draws no rein, but he shakes the street
With a shout and the ring of the galloping feet,
And this the cry that he flings to the wind,--
“_To the hills for your lives! The flood is behind!_”
He cries and is gone, but they know the worst,--
The treacherous Williamsburg dam has burst!
The basin that nourished their happy homes
Is changed to a demon. It comes! it comes!
A monster in aspect, with shaggy front
Of shattered dwellings to take the brunt
Of the dwellings they shatter;--white-maned and hoarse
The merciless terror fills the course
Of the narrow valley, and rushing raves
With death on the first of its hissing waves,
Till cottage and street and crowded mill
Are crumbled and crushed. But onward still,
In front of the roaring flood, is heard
The galloping horse and the warning word.
Thank God that the brave man’s life is spared!
From Williamsburg town he nobly dared
To race with the flood, and to take the road
In front of the terrible swath it mowed.
For miles it thundered and crashed behind,
But he looked ahead with a steadfast mind:
“_They must be warned!_” was all he said,
As away on his terrible ride he sped.
When heroes are called for, bring the crown
To this Yankee rider; send him down
On the stream of time with the Curtius old;
His deed, as the Roman’s, was brave and bold;
And the tale can as noble a thrill awake,
For he offered his life for the people’s sake!