Washington <br />Crossed the Delaware in the dead of winter <br />Icy, churning water <br />Cloaks holed, hands riddled with <br />Fear <br />Boys too young to know a lady’s kiss <br />The black night covering the pass of <br />Cannon over farmland <br />Hope of revolution hanging <br />In the balance of a fatal morning <br />Daylight creeping over sleeping tents <br />The drunken celebration of a Christmas night <br />Dulling the wits of the crack-troop Hessians <br />Half-clad in their beds <br />Murdered without warning <br />A motley fusillade of rag-tag musket <br />Bewigged officers scrambling for their pistols <br />Screaming for order out of the chaotic blast <br /> <br />-of Liberty- <br /> <br />The plunge of a pike from a shopkeeper’s hand <br />An American sword <br />Stabbed with defiance <br />In American soil <br />Refusing to be bloodied <br />With American dreams. <br /> <br /> <br />(Previously published in The Odeum, Jan.2002)<br /><br />Laurence Overmire<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/trenton-1776/
