University of Virginia Library

'T was dreadful hot on Bunker's height, —
The patriots in their trenches lay, —
While, bellowing with a bitter spite,
The British cannon blazed away;
When Parson Martin wiped his brow,
And, turning round, to Prescott spoke:
“I guess I 'll go, if you 'll allow,
A while among the Charlestown folk.
“I feel there 's danger to the town,
I see the clouds there gathering thick;
And ere the storm comes rattling down,
I think I 'll tell them cut their stick.”
And then he took a glass, — good man! —
And through the village made his way;
A glass, I mean, with which to scan
The hostile vessels in the Bay.
He saw the British barges fill
With arméd soldiers fierce and strong,
And told the folk it boded ill,
And that they 'd better push along.
But no, not they; a dogged trait
Impelled them to incur the pinch.
And so they thought they 'd better wait,
And vowed they would n't budge an inch.
Again good Parson Martin went
Down to the village all alone;
From digging hard his strength was spent,
From watching he was weary grown.
“Now rest ye,” goodman Cary said;
“Your tottering limbs pray here bestow,”
And pointed to a bounteous bed,
A solace meet for weary woe.

And on the bed the parson fell,
But scarcely had his eyelids closed,
When, crashing through the roof, a shell
Disturbed the dream in which he dozed.
“I think,” quoth he, upstarting straight,
“'T will be here somewhat warm to-day,
And that, if you should hap to wait,
You 'll find the deuce and all to pay.”
And then from out the fated bound
The people sadly made their tracks,
But Parson Martin he was found
Where fell the most determined whacks.
His heart to heaven went up in prayer
That it would aid each mother's son;
And heaven made vocal answer there,
In every deadly patriot gun.