Buena Vista

"Brunt the Fight"
The Poems of Charles Fenno Hoffman (1873)by Charles Fenno Hoffman, edited by Edward Fenno HoffmanSongs and Occasional Poems
My Dog
Charles Fenno Hoffman5149788The Poems of Charles Fenno Hoffman — Songs and Occasional Poems1873Edward Fenno Hoffman

Buena Vista.
[Supposed to be written by a Mexican prisoner within the American lines at Saltillo.]
We saw their watch-fires through the night
 Light up the far horizon's verge;
We heard at dawn the gathering fight
 Swell like the distant ocean surge—
The thunder-tramp of mountain hordes
 From distance sweeps a boding sound,
As Aztec's twenty thousand swords
 And clanking chargers shake the ground.
A gun!—now all is hushed again—
 How strange that lull before the storm,
That fearful silence o'er the plain!—
 Halt they their battle line to form?
It booms—it booms—it booms again,
 And through each thick and thunderous shock
The war-scream seems to pierce the brain,
 As charging squadrons interlock.
Columbia's sons—of different race—
 Proud Aztec and bold Alleghan,
Are grappled there in death embrace,
 To rend each other, man to man!
The storm-clouds lift,[1] and through the haze,
 Dissolving in the noontide light,
I see the sun of Aztec blaze
 Upon her banner broad and bright!
And on-still on, her ensigns wave,
 Flinging abroad each glorious fold;
While drooping round each sullen stave
 Cling Alleghan's but half unrolled.
But stay! that shout has stirred the air;
 I see the stripes—I see the stars—
O God! who leads the phalanx there
 Beneath those fearful meteor bars?
"Old Zack"—"Old Zack"—the war-cry rattles
 Amid those men of iron tread,
As rung "Old Fritz," in Europe's battles,
 When thus his host great Frederick led!
Like Cordillera's snow-fed flood
 Its torrent-track through forests rending,
Like Santiago's crashing wood
 Through which it whirls, in foam descending,
So Taylor's power in that wild hour
 Upon our central might is thrown,
So round his dread resistless tread
 Our bleeding ranks are rent and strewn.
Oh! hardly from that carnage dire
 We drag our patriot chief away—
Who, crushed by famine, steel and fire,
 Yet claims as his the desperate day!
That day whose sinking light is shed
 O'er Buena Vista's field, to tell
Where round the sleeping and the dead
 Stalks conquering Taylor's sentinel.
↑ While the battle was going on, there came up a thick black cloud, which extended itself across the valley immediately over the two armies, entirely concealing them from my view, from which I could hear peal after peal of heavy thunder, and see the sharp lightning descend. At the same time I could hear the roar of the cannon of both armies, then engaged in deadly conflict; as though Heaven's artillery was contending against that of feeble man."—Letter from an Officer, in the Knickerbocker.