POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL
JOHN W. MORTON
Ringed with flame and sore beset,
Where gunboat and rifle fire met;
Where cannon blazed from water and land
Upon the Donelson Southern band,
A gallant lad of nineteen years,
A stranger to tremor and to fears,
Stood by a battery piece and shot
The first shell in that crater hot.
His captain, Porter, smitten down
Where all the volleyed thunders frown,
Shouted, when borne in pain away:
“John, don’t give up that gun, I say!”
“No! not while a man is left,” replied
The lad, in the flush of martial pride;
And he kept his word to the utter end,
While a man could live in that river bend.
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