previous next

[28]

Such was the stuff of the Malakoff takers,
Such were the soldiers that scaled the Redan;
Truculent housemaids and bloodthirsty Quakers
Brave not the wrath of the sweet little man!

Yield him the sidewalk, ye nursery maidens!
Sauve qui peut! Bridget, and Right about! Ann;--
Fierce as a shark in a school of menhadens,
See him advancing, the sweet little man!

When the red flails of the battlefield's threshers
Beat out the continent's wheat from its bran,
While the wind scatters the chaffy seceshers,
What will become of our sweet little man?

When the brown soldiers come back from the borders,
How will he look while his features they scan?
How will he feel when he gets marching orders,
Signed by his lady love? sweet little man.

Fear not for him though the Rebels expect him,--
Life is too precious to shorten its span;
Woman her broomstick shall raise to protect him,
Will she not fight for the sweet little man!

Now, then, nine cheers for the Stay-at-home Ranger!
Blow the great fish-horn and beat the big pan!
First in the field, that is farthest from danger,
Take your white feather plume, sweet little man!


The 16th of April was a memorable day in the history of the Old Bay State,--a day made more uncomfortable by the rain and sleet which were falling with disagreeable constancy. Well do I remember the day. Possessing an average amount of the fire and enthusiasm of youth, I had asked my father's consent to go out with Company A of the old Fourth Regiment, which belonged to my native town. But he would not give ear to any such “nonsense,” and, having been brought up to obey his orders, although of military age (18), I did not enter the service in the first rally. This company did not go with full ranks. There were few that did. Several of my shopmates were in its membership. As

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
Sauve (1)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
April 16th (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: