Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SACK OF DEERFIELD (1704), by THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SACK OF DEERFIELD (1704), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Of the onset, fear-inspiring, and the firing
Last Line: And, ere dawning of the morning, I was twenty miles away.
Subject(s): Deerfield, Massachusetts; French & Indian Wars


OF the onset, fear-inspiring, and the firing and the pillage
Of our village, when De Rouville with his forces on us fell,
When, ere dawning of the morning, with no death-portending warning,
With no token shown or spoken, came the foeman, hear me tell.

High against the palisadoes, on the meadows, banks, and hill-sides,
At the rill-sides, over fences, lay the lingering winter snow;
And so high by tempest rifted, at our pickets it was drifted,
That its frozen crust was chosen as a bridge to bear the foe.

We had set at night a sentry, lest an entry, while the sombre
Heavy slumber was upon us, by the Frenchman should be made;
But the faithless knave we posted, though of wakefulness he boasted,
'Stead of keeping watch was sleeping, and his solemn trust betrayed.

Than our slumber none profounder; never sounder fell on sleeper,
Never deeper sleep its shadow cast on dull and listless frames;
But it fled before the crashing of the portals, and the flashing,
And the soaring, and the roaring, and the crackling of the flames.

Fell the shining hatchets quickly 'mid the thickly crowded women,
Growing dim in crimson currents from the pulses of the brain;
Rained the balls from firelocks deadly, till the melted snow ran redly
With the glowing torrent flowing from the bodies of the slain.

I, from pleasant dreams awaking at the breaking of my casement,
With amazement saw the foemen enter quickly where I lay;
Heard my wife and children's screaming, as the hatchets
woke their dreaming,
Heard their groaning and their moaning as their spirits passed away.

'T was in vain I struggled madly as the sadly sounding pleading
Of my bleeding, dying darlings fell upon my tortured ears;
'T was in vain I wrestled, raging, fight against their numbers waging,
Crowding round me there they bound me, while my manhood
sank in tears.

At the spot to which they bore me, no one o'er me watched or warded;
There unguarded, bound and shivering, on the snow I lay alone;
Watching by the firelight ruddy, as the butchers dark and bloody,
Slew the nearest friends and dearest to my memory ever known.

And it seemed, as rose the roaring blaze, up soaring, redly streaming
O'er the gleaming snow around me through the shadows of the night,
That the figures flitting fastly were the fiends at revels ghastly,
Madly urging on the surging, seething billows of the fight.

Suddenly my gloom was lightened, hope was heightened,
though the shrieking,
Malice-wreaking, ruthless wretches death were scattering to and fro;
For a knife lay there -- I spied it, and a tomahawk beside it
Glittering brightly, buried lightly, keen edge upward, in the snow.

Naught knew I how came they thither, nor from whither;
naught to me then
If the heathen dark, my captors, dropped those weapons there or no;
Quickly drawn o'er axe-edge lightly, cords were cut that
held me tightly,
Then, with engines of my vengeance in my hands, I sought the foe.

Oh, what anger dark, consuming, fearful, glooming, looming horrid,
Lit my forehead, draped my figure, leapt with fury from my glance;
'Midst the foemen rushing frantic, to their sight I seemed gigantic,
Like the motion of the ocean, like a tempest my advance.

Stoutest of them all, one savage left the ravage round and faced me;
Fury braced me, for I knew him -- he my pleading wife had slain.
Huge he was, and brave and brawny, but I met the slayer tawny,
And with rigorous blow, and vigorous, clove his tufted
skull in twain --
Madly dashing down the crashing bloody hatchet in his brain.

As I brained him rose their calling, "Lo! appalling from yon meadow
The Monedo of the white man comes with vengeance in his train!"
As they fled, my blows Titanic falling fast increased their panic,
Till their shattered forces scattered widely o'er the snowy plain.

Stern De Rouville then their error, born of terror, soon dispersing,
Loudly cursing them for folly, roused their pride with
words of scorn;
Peering cautiously they knew me, then by numbers overthrew me;
Fettered surely, bound securely, there again I lay forlorn.

Well I knew their purpose horrid, on each forehead it was written --
Pride was smitten that their bravest had retreated at my ire;
For the rest the captive's durance, but for me there was assurance
Of the tortures known to martyrs -- of the terrible death by fire.

Then I felt, though horror-stricken, pulses quicken as the swarthy
Savage, or the savage Frenchman, fiercest of the cruel band,
Darted in and out the shadows, through the shivered palisadoes,
Death-blows dealing with unfeeling heart and never-sparing hand.

Soon the sense of horror left me, and bereft me of all feeling;
Soon, revealing all my early golden moments, memory came;
Showing how, when young and sprightly, with a footstep
falling lightly,
I had pondered as I wandered on the maid I loved to name.

Her, so young, so pure, so dove-like, that the love-like angels whom a
Sweet aroma circles ever wheresoe'er they move their wings,
Felt with her the air grow sweeter, felt with her their joy completer,
Felt their gladness swell to madness, silent grow their
silver strings.

Then I heard her voice's murmur breathing summer, while my spirit
Leaned to hear it and to drink it like a draught of pleasant wine;
Felt her head upon my shoulder drooping as my love I told her;
Felt the utterly pleased flutter of her heart respond to mine.

Then I saw our darlings clearly that more nearly linked our gladness;
Saw our sadness as a lost one sank from pain to happy rest;
Mingled tears with hers and chid her, bade her by our love consider
How our dearest now was nearest to the blessed Master's breast.

I had lost that wife so cherished, who had perished, passed
from being,
In my seeing -- I, unable to protect her or defend;
At that thought dispersed those fancies, born of woe-begotten trances,
While unto me came the gloomy present hour my heart to rend.

For I heard the firelocks ringing fiercely flinging forth
the whirring,
Blood-preferring leaden bullets from a garrisoned abode;
There it stood so grim and lonely, speaking of its tenants only,
When the furious leaden couriers from its loopholes fastly rode.

And the seven who kept it stoutly, though devoutly triumph praying,
Ceased not slaying, trusting somewhat to their firelocks
and their wives;
For while they the house were holding, balls the wives were
quickly moulding --
Neither fearful, wild, nor tearful, toiling earnest for their lives.

Onward rushed each dusky leaguer, hot and eager, but the seven
Rained the levin from their firelocks as the Pagans forward pressed;
Melting at that murderous firing, back that baffled foe retiring,
Left there lying, dead or dying, ten, their bravest and their best.

Rose the red sun, straightly throwing from his glowing disk
his brightness
On the whiteness of the snowdrifts and the ruins of the town --
On those houses well defended, where the foe in vain expended
Ball and powder, standing prouder, smoke-begrimed and
scarred and brown.

Not for us those rays shone fairly, tinting rarely dawning early
With the pearly light and glistering of the March's snowy morn;
Some were wounded, some were weary, some were sullen, all were dreary,
As the sorrow of that morrow shed its cloud of woe forlorn.

Then we heard De Rouville's orders, "To the borders!" and the dismal,
Dark abysmal fate before us opened widely as he spoke;
But we heard a shout in distance -- into fluttering existence,
Brief but splendid, quickly ended, at the sound our hopes awoke.

'T was our kinsmen armed and ready, sweeping steady to the nor'ward,
Pressing forward fleet and fearless, though in scanty
force they came --
Cried De Rouville, grimly speaking, "Is't our captives you
are seeking?
Well, with iron we environ them, and wall them round with flame.

"With the toil of blood we won them, we've undone them with
our bravery;
Off to slavery, then, we carry them or leave them lifeless here.
Foul my shame so far to wander, and my soldiers' blood to squander
'Mid the slaughter free as water, should our prey escape us clear.

"Off, ye scum of peasants Saxon, and your backs on Frenchmen turning,
To our burning, dauntless courage proper tribute promptly pay;
Do you come to seize and beat us? Are you here to slay and eat us?
If your meat be Gaul and Mohawk, we will starve you out to-day."

How my spirit raged to hear him, standing near him bound and helpless!
Never whelpless tigress fiercer howled at slayer of her young,
When secure behind his engines, he has baffled her of vengeance,
Than did I there, forced to lie there while his bitter
taunts he flung.

For I heard each leaden missile whirr and whistle from the trusty
Firelock rusty, brought there after long-time absence
from the strife,
And was forced to stand in quiet, with my warm blood running riot,
When for power to give an hour to battle I had bartered life.

All in vain they thus had striven; backward driven, beat and broken,
Leaving token of their coming in the dead around the dell,
They retreated -- well it served us! their retreat from
death preserved us,
Though the order for our murder from the dark De Rouville fell.

As we left our homes in ashes, through the lashes of the sternest
Welled the earnest tears of anguish for the dear ones passed away:
Sick at heart and heavily loaded, though with cruel blows they goaded,
Sorely cumbered, miles we numbered four alone that weary day.

They were tired themselves of tramping, for encamping they were ready,
Ere the steady twilight newer pallor threw upon the snow;
So they built them huts of branches, in the snow they
scooped out trenches,
Heaped up firing, then, retiring, let us sleep our sleep of woe.

By the wrist -- and by no light hand -- to the right hand
of a painted,
Murder-tainted, loathsome Pagan, with a jeer, I soon was tied;
And the one to whom they bound me, 'mid the scoffs of those around me,
Bowing to me, mocking, drew me down to slumber at his side.

As for me, be sure I slept not: slumber crept not on my senses;
Less intense is lover's musing than a captive's bent on ways
To escape from fearful thralling, and a death by fire appalling;
So, unsleeping, I was keeping on the Northern Star my gaze.

There I lay -- no muscle stirring, mind unerring, thought unswerving,
Body nerving, till a death-like, breathless slumber fell around;
Then my right hand cautious stealing, o'er my bed-mate's
person feeling,
Till each finger stooped to linger on the belt his waist that bound.

'T was his knife -- the handle clasping, firmly grasping,
forth I drew it,
Clinging to it firm, but softly, with a more than robber's art;
As I drove it to its utter length of blade, I heard the flutter
Of a snow-bird -- ah! 't was no bird 't was the flutter of my heart.

Then I cut the cord that bound me, peered around me, rose uprightly,
Stepped as lightly as a lover on his blessed bridal day;
Swiftly as my need inclined me, kept the bright North Star behind me,
And, ere dawning of the morning, I was twenty miles away.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net