MONTEREY.1

WE were not many, we who stood
Before the iron sleet that day;
Yet many a gallant spirit would
Give half his years if but he could
Have been with us at Monterey.

Now here, now there, the shot it hailed
In deadly drifts of fiery spray,

Yet not a single soldier quailed

When wounded comrades round them wailed
Their dying shout at Monterey.

And on, still on our column kept

Through walls of flame its withering way;
Where fell the dead, the living stept,
Still charging on the guns which swept
The slippery streets of Monterey.

The foe himself recoiled aghast,

When, striking where he strongest lay,
We swooped his flanking batteries past,
And braving full their murderous blast,

Stormed home the towers of Monterey.

1 During the Mexican War, in 1846, General Taylor with less than six thousand men took the strongly fortified city of Monterey by storm. The city was defended by a garrison numbering nearly two to one of the attacking force, but it fell before the impetuous assault of the Americans.

Our banners on those turrets wave,
And there our evening bugles play;
Where orange-boughs above their grave,
Keep green the memory of the brave
Who fought and fell at Monterey.

We are not many, we who pressed
Beside the brave who fell that day;
But who of us has not confessed
He'd rather share their warrior rest
Than not have been at Monterey?

CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN.

OUR STATE.

THE South-land boasts its teeming cane.
The prairied west its heavy grain,
And sunset's radiant gates unfold
On rising marts and sands of gold.

Rough, bleak, and hard, our little State
Is scant of soil, of limits strait;
Her yellow sands are sands alone,
Her only mines are ice and stone!

From autumn frost to April rain,
Too long her winter woods complain;
From budding flower to falling leaf,
Her summer time is all too brief.

Yet, on her rocks, and on her sands,

And wintry hills, the school-house stands;

And what her rugged soil denies

The harvest of the mind supplies.

The riches of the commonwealth

Are free, strong minds, and hearts of health; And more to her than gold or grain

The cunning hand and cultured brain.

For well she keeps her ancient stock,
The stubborn strength of Pilgrim Rock;
And still maintains, with milder laws,
And clearer light, the good old cause!

Nor heeds the sceptic's puny hands,

While near her school the church-spire stands;
Nor fears the blinded bigot's rule,

While near her church-spire stands the school.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

CARMEN BELLICOSUM.1

In their ragged regimentals
Stood the old Continentals,2

Yielding not,

3

When the grenadiers were lunging,+
And like hail fell the plunging

Cannon-shot;

When the files

Of the isles,

From the smoky night encampment, bore the banner of the rampant 5 Unicorn,6

And grummer, grummer, grummer, rolled the roll of the drummer,

Through the morn!

Then with eyes to the front all,
And with guns horizontal,

Stood our sires;

And the balls whistled deadly,

And in streams flashing redly

1 Carmen Bellicosum: a war-song (of the Revolution).

2 Continentals: the American forces.

8 Grenadiers: English soldiers.

4 Lunging thrusting with their swords.

5 Rampant: standing in a fighting attitude.

6 Unicorn: the Unicorn on the British coat-of-arms.