Analysis of The Centerarian's Story

   GIVE me your hand, old Revolutionary;
   The hill-top is nigh--but a few steps, (make room, gentlemen;)
   Up the path you have follow'd me well, spite of your hundred and
         extra years;
   You can walk, old man, though your eyes are almost done;
   Your faculties serve you, and presently I must have them serve me.

Rest, while I tell what the crowd around us means;
   On the plain below, recruits are drilling and exercising;
   There is the camp--one regiment departs to-morrow;
   Do you hear the officers giving the orders?
   Do you hear the clank of the muskets?                              10

Why, what comes over you now, old man?
   Why do you tremble, and clutch my hand so convulsively?
   The troops are but drilling--they are yet surrounded with smiles;
   Around them, at hand, the well-drest friends, and the women;
   While splendid and warm the afternoon sun shines down;
   Green the midsummer verdure, and fresh blows the dallying breeze,
   O'er proud and peaceful cities, and arm of the sea between.
   But drill and parade are over--they march back to quarters;
   Only hear that approval of hands! hear what a clapping!

As wending, the crowds now part and disperse--but we, old man,     20
   Not for nothing have I brought you hither--we must remain;
   You to speak in your turn, and I to listen and tell.

When I clutch'd your hand, it was not with terror;
   But suddenly, pouring about me here, on every side,
   And below there where the boys were drilling, and up the slopes they
         ran,
   And where tents are pitch'd, and wherever you see, south and south-
         east and south-west,
   Over hills, across lowlands, and in the skirts of woods,
   And along the shores, in mire (now fill'd over), came again, and
         suddenly raged,
   As eighty-five years agone, no mere parade receiv'd with applause of
         friends,
   But a battle, which I took part in myself--aye, long ago as it is, I
         took part in it,                                             30
   Walking then this hill-top, this same ground.

Aye, this is the ground;
   My blind eyes, even as I speak, behold it re-peopled from graves;
   The years recede, pavements and stately houses disappear;
   Rude forts appear again, the old hoop'd guns are mounted;
   I see the lines of rais'd earth stretching from river to bay;
   I mark the vista of waters, I mark the uplands and slopes:
   Here we lay encamp'd--it was this time in summer also.

As I talk, I remember all--I remember the Declaration;
   It was read here--the whole army paraded--it was read to us here;  40
   By his staff surrounded, the General stood in the middle--he held up
         his unsheath'd sword,
   It glitter'd in the sun in full sight of the army.

'Twas a bold act then;
   The English war-ships had just arrived--the king had sent them from
         over the sea;
   We could watch down the lower bay where they lay at anchor,
   And the transports, swarming with soldiers.

A few days more, and they landed--and then the battle.

Twenty thousand were brought against us,
   A veteran force, furnish'd with good artillery.

I tell not now the whole of the battle;                            50
   But one brigade, early in the forenoon, order'd forward to engage the
         red-coats;
   Of that brigade I tell, and how steadily it march'd,
   And how long and how well it stood, confronting death.

Who do you think that was, marching steadily, sternly confronting
         death?
   It was the brigade of the youngest men, two thousand strong,
   Rais'd in Virginia and Maryland, and many of them known personally to
         the General.

Jauntily forward they went with quick step toward Gowanus' waters;
   Till of a sudden, unlook'd for, by defiles through the woods, gain'd
         at night,
   The British advancing, wedging in from the east, fiercely playing
         their guns,
   That brigade of the youngest was cut off, and at the enemy's
         mercy.                                                       60

The General watch'd them from this hill;
   They made repeated desperate attempts to burst their environment;
   Then drew close together, very compact, their flag flying in the
         middle;
   But O from the hills how the cannon were thinning and thinning them!

It sickens me yet, that slaughter!
   I saw the moisture gather in drops on the face of the General;