When first the bearded robbers came for plunder to our shore.
They come, the mercenary dogs, assassins of the crown;
Right gracefully and gallantly they sit their horses brown,
Then rowel-deep they drive their spurs, and thunder madly down.
But as the ground is shaking round before their horses’ tread,
A sheet of fire their sabres lights, high waving overhead,
And of the hundred men who charge full forty-eight lie dead.
Those who survive in vain they strive; they may not fight nor run—
We pass them quickly to the rear, our captives every one.
And so we serve the Brunswicker that day at Bennington.