What if it had ridden with Forman,
    When he leaped through the open door,
  With the British dragoon behind him,
    In his race o’er the granary floor? 
  What if—­but the brain grows dizzy
    With the thoughts of the rusted spur;
  What if it had fled with Clinton,
    Or charged with Aaron Burr?

  But bravely the farmer’s urchin
    Had been scraping the rust away;
  And cleansed from the soil that swathed it,
    The spur before me lay. 
  Here are holes in the outer circle—­
    No common heel it has known,
  For each space, I see by the setting,
    Once held some precious stone.

  And here—­not far from the buckle—­
    Do my eyes deceive their sight?—­
  Two letters are here engraven,
    That initial a hero’s might! 
  ‘G.W.’!  Saints of heaven! 
    Can such things in our lives occur? 
  Do I grasp such a priceless treasure? 
    Was this George Washington’s spur?

  Did the brave old Pater Patrioe
    Wear that spur like a belted knight—­
  Wear it through gain and disaster,
    From Cambridge to Monmouth flight? 
  Did it press his steed in hot anger
    On Long Island’s day of pain? 
  Did it drive him, at terrible Princeton,
    ’Tween two storms of leaden rain?

  And here—­did the buckle loosen,
    And no eye look down to see,
  When he rode to blast with the lightning
    The shrinking eyes of Lee? 
  Did it fall, unfelt and unheeded,
    When that fight of despair was won,
  And Clinton, worn and discouraged,
    Crept away at the set of sun?

  The lips have long been silent
    That could send an answer back;
  And the spur, all broken and rusted,
    Has forgotten its rider’s track! 
  I only know that the pulses
    Leap hot, and the senses reel,
  When I think that the Spur of Monmouth
    May have clasped George Washington’s heel!

  And if it be so, O Heaven,
    That the nation’s destiny holds,
  And that maps the good and the evil
    In the future’s bewildering folds,
  Send forth some man of the people,
    Unspotted in heart and hand,
  On his foot to buckle the relic,
    And charge for a periled land!

  There is fire in our fathers’ ashes;
    There is life in the blood they shed;
  And not a hair unheeded
    Shall fall from the nation’s head. 
  Old bones of the saints and the martyrs
    Spring up at the church’s call:—­
  God grant that the Spur of Monmouth
    Prove the mightiest relic of all!

* * * * *

THE FATAL MARRIAGE OF BILL THE SOUNDSER.