[First two lines illegible]
How concerning such bill and date
Drafts, with the dew, her shadow [?]
In [??] darkening tide.
Was quenched the golden ray;
Silent the silent [?] besides.
There about peoples hope and pride.
Three of about [?] day.
[??] them the clouds of night.
That close a fierce and hurried fight
Had [?] all and none elate.
With equal hope and doubt they with
A fiercer bloodier day.
France every madman's foe is there
And Albious saves her red cross bow.
With Spain's young liability to share
The fortune of the fray.
And is it now a goodly sight
Or dreadful to behold
The prompt of that approaching fight.
Wincing [?], previous light,
Are glowing blades [???]
And eagles winged with gold
Are warrior guards of [?] fire
Search and white and grow over [?]
Like rainbows over the morning dew
Their [?] lower unfold
Where [???] else...
[??] of battle talked
And [?] of [?] feat the plain
Till the clouds chased back again
As of the Sunday called
The [?] in the flames of France
With rapid step and form advance
At first through tangled ground
And fence and dell and deep ravine-
At length they reach the land green
The midnight battle murderous scene
The [?] custom found.
These in a rapid line they form
These are just [?] to the storm
By bold Bellino bed
Whose sunden thunders shake the wall
Day seems as an eclipse to fail T
he light of heaven is fled
A dusty wheel since rides the sky
To [?] tempest rushes by
With deafening clang on time
A charge, a charge, the British cry
And Seymour at the head.
Both shooting high and rolling far
What now and horrid face of war
Now blessed was the right?
So [???] she retires
That awakes in desolating faces
The emergence of her flight
The flames; the grassy dunes overrun
Already [?] by summer's sun;
And sweeping [?] down the breeze
In clouds the and thicketts seize
And winds the dry and withered trees
In flashes long and bright
Christmas a scene sublime and dire
To see there that bellowing sea of fire
Rolling its fierce and [?] flood
Over cultured field and tangled waves
And drowning in the flaming tide
Autumn's hope and summer's pride
From [?] wall and tower
And from the mountain's hights [sic]
Where they had stood for many an hour
To view the varying fight
Burghess and peasants in amaze
Behold their groves and vineyard blazes
Trembling they viewed the bloody fray
But little thought ere close of day
That Englands sigh and France's groan
Should be so echoed by their own!
But oh! Far other cries than these
Are whispered on the dismal breeze-
Groans not the wounded's lingering groan
Shrieks not the shriek of death alone
But groan and shriek and horrid yell
Of terror torture and despair
Such as [??] freeze the tongue to tell
And shall the heart to hear
When to the very field of fight
Dreadful alike in sound and sight
The [???]
I [??] in its very wane
The brave and [?] of the brave
The dying and the dead
By Amator [?]
[There is a second poem attached to the first, but it is illegible]

¹ For more examples of Dr. Calvin McQuesten's school work see the following documents: W0339, W0346, W0349, W0350, W0351.