With smiles like those of summer,
And tears like those of spring.
For them we wear these trusty arms,
And lay them down no more
Till we have driven the Briton,

For ever, from our shore.

THE BATTLE OF THE COWPENS.

Jan. 17, 1781.

In 1781, most of the fighting was in the South, and the first battle of importance was this, in which Morgan defeated Tarleton. This poem is taken from “American Ballads" (Harpers, 1879).

To the Cowpens riding proudly, boasting loudly,

rebels scorning,

Tarleton hurried, hot and eager for the fight;

From the Cowpens, sore confounded, on that January

morning,

Tarleton hurried somewhat faster, fain to save himself by flight.

In the morn he scorned us rarely, but he fairly found

his error,

When his force was made our ready blows to feel; When his horsemen and his footmen fled in wild and

pallid terror

At the leaping of our bullets and the sweeping of

our steel.

All the day before we fled them, and we led them to

pursue us,

Then at night on Thickety Mountain made our

camp;

There we lay upon our rifles, slumber quickly coming

to us,

Spite the crackling of our camp-fires and our sentries' heavy tramp.

Morning on the mountain border ranged in order found our forces,

Ere our scouts announced the coming of the foe; While the hoar-frost lying near us, and the distant

water-courses,

Gleamed like silver in the sunlight, seemed like silver in their glow.

Morgan ranged us there to meet them, and to greet them with such favor

That they scarce would care to follow us again;

In the rear, the Continentals-none were readier nor

braver ;

In the van, with ready rifles, steady, stern, our mountain men.

Washington, our trooper peerless, gay and fearless, with his forces

Waiting panther-like upon the foe to fall,

Formed upon the slope behind us, where, on raw-boned country horses,

Sat the sudden-summoned levies brought from Georgia by M'Call.

Soon we heard a distant drumming, nearer coming, slow advancing

It was then upon the very nick of nine.

Soon upon the road from Spartanburg we saw their bayonets glancing,

And the morning sunlight playing on their swaying scarlet line.

In the distance seen so dimly, they looked grimly;

coming nearer,

There was naught about them fearful, after all,

Until some one near me spoke in voice than falling

water clearer,

"Tarleton's quarter is the sword-blade, Tarleton's mercy is the ball.”

Then the memory came unto me, heavy, gloomy, of my brother

Who was slain while asking quarter at their hand; Of that morning when was driven forth my sister and my mother

From our cabin in the valley by the spoilers of the land.

I remembered of my brother slain, my mother spurned and beaten,

Of my sister in her beauty brought to shame;

Of the wretches' jeers and laughter, as from mud-sill up to rafter

Of the stripped and plundered cabin leapt the fierce, consuming flame.