Caldwell of Springfield

Heres the spot. Look around you. Above on the height     Lay the Hessians encamped. By that church on the right     Stood the gaunt Jersey farmers. And here ran a wall,     You may dig anywhere and youll turn up a ball.     Nothing more. Grasses spring, waters run, flowers blow,     Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago.     Nothing more, did I say? Stay one moment: youve heard     Of Caldwell, the parson, who once preached the word     Down at Springfield? What, no? Come thats bad; why, he had     All the Jerseys aflame! And they gave him the name     Of the rebel high priest. He stuck in their gorge,     For he loved the Lord God and he hated King George!     He had cause, you might say! When the Hessians that day     Marched up with Knyphausen, they stopped on their way     At the farms, where his wife, with a child in her arms,     Sat alone in the house. How it happened none knew     But God and that one of the hireling crew     Who fired the shot! Enough! there she lay,     And Caldwell, the chaplain, her husband, away!     Did he preach did he pray? Think of him as you stand     By the old church to-day, think of him and his band     Of militant ploughboys! See the smoke and the heat     Of that reckless advance, of that straggling retreat!     Keep the ghost of that wife, foully slain, in your view     And what could you, what should you, what would you do?     Why, just what he did! They were left in the lurch     For the want of more wadding. He ran to the church,     Broke the door, stripped the pews, and dashed out in the road     With his arms full of hymn-books, and threw down his load     At their feet! Then above all the shouting and shots     Rang his voice: Put Watts into em! Boys, give em Watts!     And they did. That is all. Grasses spring, flowers blow,     Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago.     You may dig anywhere and youll turn up a ball     But not always a hero like this and thats all.