Admiral Hosier's Ghost

"Heed, oh, heed our fatal story!

I am Hosier's injured ghost;
You who now have purchased glory
At this place where I was lost:
Though in Portobello's ruin,

You now triumph free from fears,
When you think on our undoing,

You will mix your joys with tears.

"See these mournful spectres sweeping Ghastly o'er this hated wave,

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Whose wan cheeks are stained with weeping;
These were English captains brave.

Mark those numbers, pale and horrid,
Who were once my sailors bold;
Lo! each hangs his drooping forehead,
While his dismal tale is told.

"I, by twenty sail attended,

Did this Spanish town affright;
Nothing then its wealth defended
But my orders-not to fight!
Oh! that in this rolling ocean

I had cast them with disdain,
And obeyed my heart's warm motion,
To have quelled the pride of Spain!

"For resistance I could fear none;
But with twenty ships had done
What thou, brave and happy Vernon,
Hast achieved with six alone.

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,
And her galleons leading home,
Though condemned for disobeying,
I had met a traitor's doom:

To have fallen, my country crying,
'He has played an English part,'
Had been better far than dying
Of a grieved and broken heart.

"Unrepining at thy glory,

Thy successful arms we hail;
But remember our sad story,
And let Hosier's wrongs prevail.
Sent in this foul clime to languish,
Think what thousands fell in vain,
Wasted with disease and anguish,
Not in glorious battle slain.
"Hence with all my train attending,
From their oozy tombs below,
Through the hoary foam ascending,
Here I feed my constant woe.
Here the Bastimentos viewing,

We recall our shameful doom,
And, our plaintive cries renewing,
Wander through the midnight gloom.

"O'er these waves forever mourning
Shall we roam, deprived of rest,
If, to Britain's shores returning,
You neglect my just request;
After this proud foe subduing,

When your patriot friends you see,

Think on vengeance for my ruin,

And for England-shamed in me.”
Richard Glover [1712–1785)

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,
And ordered up his last reserve, his latest chance to try.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, how fast his generals ride!
And mustering come his chosen troops, like clouds at even-
tide.

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,
Had not these exiles ready been, fresh, vehement, and

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.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, nor ever yet elsewhere,
Rushed on to fight a nobler band than these proud exiles

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,
While cavalier and fantassin dash in upon their track.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, like eagles in the sun,
With bloody plumes, the Irish stand-the field is fought and
won!

Thomas Osborne Davis [1814-1845]

LAMENT FOR CULLODEN

[APRIL 16, 1746]

THE lovely lass o' Inverness,
Nae joy nor pleasure can she see;
For e'en and morn she cries, Alas!
And aye the saut tear blins her e'e:
Drumossie moor-Drumossie day-
A waefu' day it was to me!
For there I lost my father dear,
My father dear, and brethren three.

Their winding-sheet the bluidy clay,
Their graves are growing green to see:
And by them lies the dearest lad
That ever blest a woman's e'e!
Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord,
A bluidy man I trow thou be;
For mony a heart thou hast made sair
That ne'er did wrang to thine or thee.

Robert Burns [1759-1796]