“Pulling down and building up is all the go,

And the scene changes like a raree show,”

Yet is it not disgraceful to the nation,

That Shakespeare’s house is doomed to mutilation?

The house in which that great man first drew breath,

A spot renowned before and after death—

Where pilgrims from every land have come,

To see his birth place, Nature’s learned home—

Where first shone forth, a pale, an infant light,