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Poems about Artillery Life
Hurrah for the Light Artillery!
The Pride of Battery B
The Artilleryman's Vision
Hurrah for the Light Artillery!
by Anonymous
On the unstained sward of the gentle slope,
Full of valor and nerved by hope,
The infantry sways like a coming sea;
Why lingers the light artillery?
"Action front!"
Whirling the Parrotts like children's toys,
The horses strain to the rushing noise;
To right and to left, so fast and free,
They carry the light artillery.
"Drive on!"
The gunner cries with a tug and a jerk,
The limbers fly, and we bend to our work;
The handspike in, and the implements out--
We wait for the word, and it comes with a shout--
"Load!"
The foes pour on their billowy line;
Can nothing check their bold design?
With yells and oaths of fiendish glee,
They rush for the light artillery.
"Commence firing!"
Hurrah! Hurrah! our bulldogs bark,
And the enemy's line is a glorious mark;
Hundreds fall like grain on the lea,
Mowed down by the light artillery.
"Fire!" and "Load!" are the only
cries,
Thundered and rolled to the vaulted skies;
Aha! they falter, they halt, they flee
From the hail of the light artillery.
"Cease firing!"
The battle is over, the victory won,
Ere the dew is dried by the rising sun;
While the shout bursts out, like a full-voiced sea,
"Hurrah for the light artillery!
"Hurrah for the light artillery!"
The Pride of Battery B
by Frank H. Gassaway
South Mountain towered on our right,
Far off the river lay,
And over on the wooded height
We held their line at bay.
At last the mutt'ring guns were stilled,
The day died slow and wan.
At last their pipes the gunners filled,
The Sergeant's yarns began.
When,--as the wind a moment blew
Aside the fragrant flood
Our brierwoods raised,--within our view
A little maiden stood.
A tiny tot of six or seven;
From fireside fresh she seemed.
(Of such a little one in heaven
One soldier often dreamed.)
And as we started, her little hand
Went to her curly head
In grave salute; "And who are you?"
At length the Sergeant said.
"And where's your home?" he growled again.
She lisped out, "Who is me?
Why, don't you know? I'm little Jane,
the pride of Battery B.
"My home? Why, that was burned away,
And pa and ma are dead,
And so I ride the guns all day
Along with Sergeant Ned.
"And I've a drum that's not a toy,
A cap with feathers too,
And I march beside the drummer-boy
On Sundays at review.
"But now our bacca's all give out,
The men can't have their smoke,
And so they're cross--why, even Ned
Won't play with me and joke.
"And the big Colonel said to-day--
I hate to hear him swear--
He'd give a leg for a good pipe
Like the Yanks have over there.
"And so I thought, when beat the drum,
And the big guns were still,
I'd creep beneath the tent and come
Out here across the hill.
"And beg, good Mister Yankee men,
You'd give me some Lone Jack.
Please do--when we get some again
I'll surely bring it back.
"Indeed I will, for Ned, says he,
If I do what I say
I'll be a general yet, maybe,
And ride a prancing bay."
We brimmed her tiny apron o'er;
You should have heard her laugh
As each man from his scanty store
Shook out a generous half.
To kiss that little mouth stooped down
A score of grimy men,
Until the Sergeant's husky voice
Said "'Tention, squad!"--and then
We gave her escort, till good-night
The pretty waif we bid,
And watched her toddle out of sight--
Or else 'twas tears that hid
Her tiny form--nor turned about
A man, nor spoke a word,
Till after while a far, hoarse shout
Upon the wind we heard.
We sent it back, then cast sad eye
Upon the scene around.
A baby's hand had touched the tie
That brothers once had bound.
That's all--save when the dawn awoke
Again the work of hell,
And through the sullen clouds of smoke
The screaming missles fell,
Our Gen'ral often rubbed his glass,
And marvelled much to see
Not a single shell that whole day fell
In the camp of Battery B.
The Artilleryman's Vision
by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)
While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars
are over long,
And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant midnight
passes,
And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear,
the breath of my infant,
There in the room as I wake from sleep this vision presses upon
me;
The engagement opens there and then in fantasy unreal,
The skirmishers begin, they crawl cautiously ahead, I hear the
irregular snap! snap!
I hear the sound of the different missiles, the short t-h-t! t-h-t!
of the rifle-balls,
I see the shells exploding leaving small white clouds, I hear
the great shells
shrieking as they pass,
The grape like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees (tumultuous
now the
contest rages),
All the scenes at the batteries rise in detail before me again,
The crashing and smoking, the pride of the men in their pieces,
The chief-gunner ranges and sights his piece and selects a fuse
of the right time,
After firing I see him lean aside and look eagerly off to note
the effect;
Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging (the young colonel
leads himself
this time with brandish'd sword),
I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys (quickly fill'd up,
no delay),
I breathe the suffocating smoke, then the flat clouds hover low
concealing all;
Now a strange lull for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either
side,
Then resumed the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls and
orders of officers,
While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my
ears a shout of
applause (some special success),
And ever the sound of the cannon far or near (rousing even in
dreams a devilish
exultation and all the old mad joy in the depths of my soul),
And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions, batteries,
cavalry, moving
hither and thither,
(The falling, dying, I heed not, the wounded dripping and red
I heed not, some to
the rear are hobbling),
Grime, heat, rush, aide-de-camps galloping by or on a full run,
With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles
(these in my vision
I hear or see),
And bombs bursting in air, and at night the vari-colour'd rockets.
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