At the opening of the second campaign, Proctor invests Fort Meigs, Croghan proceeds to Sandusky. A night scene.
The events of this book are laid at Malden, and in and about Fort
Meigs. The time is twenty hours.
THE sun returning in his bright career,
Gives gladdening promise of the quickening year;
The flowery-footed Spring with all her train
Of joys and loves, comes sporting o'er the plain.
The snows dissolve insensibly away-
The ice turns liquid by the sun's warm ray.
Unbound from winter's chain, the rivers move
With silver bosoms through the budding grove—
Through vallies teeming with the floral birth
Of cowslips, vi'lets, smiling in their mirth.
A robe of woven grass adorns the mead;
An infant beauty o'er the earth is spread.
The lambkins frolic in their youthful heat,
The ewes loud call them and they answering bleat.
The heifer snuffs the essence of the gale,
And strays to taste the sweetness of the vale.
At sunny noon the bees are on the wing
To sip the luscious honey of the spring.
The fishes feel the renovating heat,
And light of heart, from winter-caves retreat:
The salmon flounces from his sea-weed bed,
And darts the river to its fountain head.
The trout-the swallow of the streamlet, flies,
As blush of morning reddens in the skies;
At noon he sleeps beneath the alder's shade,
At evening, frolics in the rippling glade.
The embryo blossoms of the orchard groves,
Show their red lips, like beauty when she loves,
While songs, sweet-noted, warble from each spray,
And hold the listener in soft ecstasy.
Light marble clouds bedeck the orient heaven-
Young life in rapture to the earth is given.
Though glad the spring returns with smile of peace,
From frowning Winter, gives the world release,
And with the music of her mellow voice,
Bids nature live and in her life rejoice,
Yet loud and martial round Columbia far,
Sound the shrill trumpet and the drums of war.
And now that Winter with his hoary train
Of frost and snow hath vanish'd from the plain,
Proctor at Malden, just at opening day,
Rose, and his squadrons order'd to display,
Ready to pass the lake and seize the fort,
And give his name a more sublime support—
Sublime in murder, not in valiant theme,
But such sublimity as Raisin's stream.
His numbers mate the buds upon the trees, Or hoarse collecting swarms of hiving bees— The scarlet Britons, dazzling on the sight, The painted Indians, clamorous for the fight:
Thus savage bears, what time that winter raves,
Lie chill'd and torpid in their darksome caves;
But when the spring thaws out their frozen blood,
They wake and prowl the graves in search of food:
So through the winter had the Indians slept,
And scarce from out their dens their length had crept,
Lock'd in unsocialness-no converse spoke,
Veil'd in an acrid cloud of stifling smoke—
But as the animating spring returns,
Their fiery veins with kindling vengeance burns.
Lo! now a banner rising in the wind,
They hush their broil till Proctor speaks his mind:
"Warriors! whose bayonets vindicate the Throne-
And, Brothers! long for deeds of daring known,
Great is my joy to see your passions burn
To leave the winter and to blood return.
Behold, in person, I command the field!
Soon, they the north of the Ohio yield,
Or every soul unsparing shall be killed!
Yea, shall we pour a blindness on their sight,
And prove our flag Death's banner in the fight!
Yes, should they dare resistance at the fort,
'Twould most congenial with our views comport,
For reckless then will we their hearts consume--
The whole Republic, bury in the tomb!
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