Chapter 3

_Enter GARDINER, with seven hundred men._

GARDINER.

This is the hill, brave countrymen, whose brow We mean to fortify. A strong redoubt, With saliant angles, and embrasures deep, Be speedily thrown up. Let each himself, Not undeserving, of our choice approve, For out of thousands, I have challeng'd you, To this bold enterprise, as men of might, And valour eminent, and such this day, I trust, will honour you. Let each his spade, And pick-axe, vig'rously, in this hard soil, Where I have laid, the curved line, exert. For now the morning star, bright Lucifer, Peers on the firmament, and soon the day, Flush'd with the golden sun, shall visit us. Then gallant countrymen, should faithless Gage, Pour forth his lean, and half-starv'd myrmidons; We'll make them taste our cartridges, and know, What rugged steel, our bayonets are made of; Or if o'er charg'd, with numbers, bravely fall, Like those three hundred at Thermopylæ, And give our Country, credit in our deaths.