Page:Collected poems vol 2 de la mare.djvu/137

 WENTY, forty, sixty, eighty,
 * A hundred years ago,

All through the night with lantern bright
 * The Watch trudged to and fro.

And little boys tucked snug abed
 * Would wake from dreams to hear —

"Two o' the morning by the clock,
 * And the stars a-shining clear!"

Or, when across the chimney-tops
 * Screamed shrill a North-east gale,

A faint and shaken voice would shout,
 * "Three! and a storm of hail!"