Blanket Shield

When blanket round us we do fold,
It doth keep out the wind and cold;
And when house is near to great fire,
Wet blankets save from ruin dire.

A General in Mexico
Advanced against Indian foe,
But Indians did hold the field,
Protected by wet blanket shield.

While Mexicans by hundreds fall,
Each pierced by an Indian ball;
Wet blanket it must hang quite loose,
Or for protection ’tis no use.

Thus Indians rushed o’er the field,
And caused the Mexicans to yield;
The savages they were more wise
Than Christian foe did them despise.

As a shield we high must rank it,
So light you cannot outflank it;
The bullets glance off from the blanket,
For its uses we must thank it.

Where this text comes from

First published in Poems of James McIntyre (1889). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/james-mcintyre_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L20.

Cite this poem

James McIntyre (1828?–1906). “Blanket Shield.” First published in Poems of James McIntyre (1889). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/james-mcintyre/blanket-shield/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

More by James McIntyre