History of the American Revolution
“These fellows say we won’t fight. By heavens, I hope I shall die up to my knees in blood!” Dr. Joseph Warren “…[If] it appears that the only way to safety is through fields of blood, I know you will not turn your faces from our foes, but will undauntedly press forward until tyranny is …
O, not in vain did Attucks fall, Or Shaw sink on the death-swept wall: We, who have trod the thorny path, And shrank beneath th’ opressor’s wrath, On hill, in dale, on field and flood, They sealed it with there martyr blood! From Centennial Year by Elijah W. Smith Boston, the fifth of March, 1770. …
Each, axe in hand, attacked the honored tree, Sweating eternal war with Liberty. But e’er it fell, not mindless of its wrong, Avenged it took one destined head along. A Tory soldier on its topmost limb, The genius of the shade looked stern at him, And marked him out that self-same hour to dine, Where unsnuffed lamps burn low at Pluto’s shrine. …