Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 1.djvu/115

104 celebrities, including all the heroes of the Revolu­tionary War:—


 * "Here stood stern Putnam, scored with ancient scars,
 * The living records of his country's wars;
 * Wayne, like a moving tower, assumes his post,
 * Fires the whole field, and is himself a host;


 * Undaunted Stirling, prompt to meet his foes,
 * And Gates and Sullivan for action rose;
 * Macdougal, Clinton, guardians of the State,
 * Stretch the nerved arm to pierce the depth of fate;


 * Moultrie and Sumter lead their banded powers;
 * Morgan in front of his bold riflers towers,
 * His host of keen-eyed marksmen, skilled to pour
 * Their slugs unerring from the twisted bore;


 * No sword, no bayonet they learn to wield,
 * They gall the flank, they skirt the battling field,
 * Cull out the distant foe in full horse speed,
 * Couch the long tube and eye the silver bead,


 * Turn as he turns, dismiss the whizzing lead,
 * And lodge the death-ball in his heedless head."

More than seven thousand lines like these fur­nished constant pleasure to the reader, the more be­cause the "Columbiad" was accepted by the public in a spirit as serious as that in which it was com­posed. The Hartford wits, who were bitter Federal­ists, looked upon Barlow as an outcast from their fold, a Jacobin in politics, and little better than a French atheist in religion; but they could not deny that his poetic garments were of a piece with their own. Neither could they without great ingratitude repudiate his poetry as they did his politics, for they themselves figured with Manco Capac, Montezuma,