Page:Poems Dorr.djvu/437

THE ARMORER'S ERRAND  A BALLAD OF 1775

Where the far skies soared clear and bright
From mountain height to mountain height,
In the heart of a forest old and gray,
Castleton slept one Sabbath day—
Slept and dreamed, on the seventh of May,
Seventeen hundred and seventy-five.

But hark! a humming, like bees in a hive;
Hark to the shouts—"They come! they come!"
Hark to the sound of the fife and drum!
For up from the south two hundred men—
Two hundred and fifty—from mount and glen,
While the deep woods rang with their rallying cry
Of "Ticonderoga! Fort Ti! Fort Ti!"
Swept into the town with a martial tread,
Ethan Allen marching ahead!

Next day the village was all astir
With unwonted tumult and hurry. There were
Gatherings here and gatherings there,
A feverish heat in the very air,
The ominous sound of tramping feet,
And eager groups in the dusty street.
To Eben's forge strode Gershom Beach
(Idle it stood, and its master away);