New Hampshire makes history

 

June 21, 1788: New Hampshire becomes the ninth and last necessary state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, thereby making the document the law of the land. By 1786, defects in the post-Revolutionary War Articles of Confederation were apparent, such as the lack of central authority...  read more

The Guards Came Through by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Guards Came Through

BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

Men of the Twenty-first 

    Up by the Chalk Pit Wood, 

Weak with our wounds and our thirst, 

    Wanting our sleep and our food, 

After a day and a night. 

    God, shall we ever forget? 

Beaten and broke in the fight, 

    But sticking it, sticking it yet, 

Trying to hold the line, 

    Fainting and spent and done; 

Always the thud and the whine, 

    Always the yell of the Hun. 

Northumberland, Lancaster, York, 

    Durham and Somerset, 

Fighting alone, worn to the bone, 

    But sticking it, sticking it yet. 

Never a message of hope, 

    Never a word of cheer! 

Fronting Hill 70’s shell-swept slope, 

    With the dull, dead plain in our rear; 

Always the shriek of the shell, 

    Always the roar of the burst, 

Always the tortures of Hell, 

    As waiting and wincing we cursed 

Our luck, the guns, and the Boche. 

    When our Corporal shouted “Stand to!” 

And I heard some one cry, “Clear the front for the Guards!”— 

    And the Guards came through. 

Our throats they were parched and hot, 

    But Lord, if you’d heard the cheer, 

Irish and Welsh and Scot, 

    Coldstream and Grenadier— 

Two Brigades, if you please, 

    Dressing as straight as a hem. 

We, we were down on our knees, 

    Praying for us and for them, 

Praying with tear-wet cheek, 

      Praying with outstretched hand. 

Lord! I could speak for a week, 

    But how could you understand? 

How could your cheeks be wet? 

    Such feelin’s don’t come to you; 

But how can me or my mates forget 

    When the Guards came through? 

“Five yards left extend!” 

    It passed from rank to rank, 

And line after line, with never a bend, 

    And a touch of the London swank. 

A trifle of swank and dash, 

    Cool as a home parade, 

Twinkle, glitter and flash, 

    Flinching never a shade, 

With the shrapnel right in their face, 

    Doing their Hyde Park stunt, 

Swinging along at an easy pace, 

    Arms at the trail, eyes front. 

Man! it was great to see! 

    Man! it was fine to do! 

It’s a cot, and hospital ward for me, 

But I’ll tell them in Blighty wherever I be, 

    How the Guards came through.

Leaving Philadelphia

On June 18, 1778, after almost nine months of occupation, 15,000 British troops under General Sir Henry Clinton evacuate Philadelphia, the former U.S. capital.

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They entered the battle but were overconfident

British General Thomas Gage lands his troops on the Charlestown Peninsula overlooking Boston, Massachusetts, and leads them against Breed’s Hill, a fortified American position just below Bunker Hill, on June 17, 1775.

As the British advanced in columns against the Americans, American Colonel William Prescott reportedly told his men, “Don’t one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” When the Redcoats were within 40 yards, the Americans let loose with a lethal barrage of musket fire, throwing the British into retreat. After reforming his lines, Gage attacked again, with much the same result. Prescott’s men were now low on ammunition, though, and when Gage led his men up the hill for a third time, they reached the redoubts and engaged the Americans in hand-to-hand combat. The outnumbered Americans were forced to retreat. However, by the end of the engagement, the Patriots’ gunfire had cut down nearly 1,000 enemy troops, including 92 officers. Of the 370 Patriots who fell, most were struck while in retreat.

The British had won the so-called Battle of Bunker Hill, and Breed’s Hill and the Charlestown Peninsula fell firmly under British control. Despite losing their strategic positions, the battle was a morale-builder for the Americans, convincing them that patriotic dedication could overcome superior British military might.

The British entered the Battle of Bunker Hill overconfident. Had they merely guarded Charlestown Neck, they could have isolated the Patriots with little loss of life. Instead, Gage had chosen to try to wipe out the Yankees by marching 2,400 men into a frontal assault on the Patriots’ well-defended position on top of the hill. The British would never make the same mistake again.

Source: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-17/battle-of-bunker-hill-begins

An ordinary day in Dublin in 1904

 Today is "Bloomsday," the annual celebration of that 1904 day featured in James Joyce's novel Ulysses. The holiday is named after Leopold Bloom, the novel's protagonist; the book follows his progress through an ordinary day in Dublin. Bloom buys kidneys at the butcher's, serves his wife, Molly, breakfast in bed, reads the mail, and visits the outhouse. He attends a morning funeral, runs an errand at the drug store, and inadvertently gives a man a winning tip about a racehorse. He bumps into an old flame, stops off for a sandwich and a glass of wine, helps a blind man cross the road, and ducks into a museum to avoid his wife's lover. He gets into an argument at Barney Kiernan's pub, ogles a young woman at the beach, and pays a hospital visit to a woman in the throes of a difficult childbirth. He spends the evening in a red-light district with young Stephen Dedalus, protagonist of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Bloom feels paternal toward the young Dedalus, and sees him home safely. Finally, in the wee hours of June 17, Leopold returns home to Molly, just as Odysseus returned to Penelope.

Source: The Writer’s Almanac 

Birthday of Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa

 It's the birthday of Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa, born in Kashiwabara, Japan (1763). He's one of the masters of the Japanese form of poetry called haiku, which uses 17 Japanese characters broken into three distinct units. He spent most of his adult life traveling around Japan, writing haiku, keeping a travel diary, and visiting shrines and temples across the country. By the end of his life, he had written more than 20,000 haiku celebrating the small wonders of everyday life.

 (Source: The Writer’s Almanac)

A little black thing among the snow

 The Chimney Sweeper

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

A little black thing among the snow,

Crying "weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe!

"Where are thy father and mother? say?"

"They are both gone up to the church to pray.

Because I was happy upon the heath,

And smil'd among the winter's snow,

They clothed me in the clothes of death,

And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

And because I am happy and dance and sing,

They think they have done me no injury,

And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,

Who make up a heaven of our misery."