British troopers came
Ere another year,
With their coats aflame,

Mincing on their toes;
Daughters of the house
Gave them haughty cheer,
Laughed to scorn their vows,
Down the old house goes!

Doorway high the box

In the grass-plot spreads;

It has borne its locks

Through a thousand snows;

In an evil day,

From those garden-beds

Now 't is hacked away,

Down the old house goes!

Lo! the sycamores,

Scathed and scrawny mates,

THESE lovely shores! how lone and still,

A hundred years ago,
The unbroken forest stood above,
The waters dashed below,
The waters of a lonely sea,
Where never sail was furled,
Embosomed in a wilderness,
Which was itself a world.