A cycle was closed and rounded,
A continent lost and won,
When Stark and his men went over
The earthworks at Bennington.
Slowly down from the northward,
Billowing fold on fold,
Whelming the land and crushing,
The glimmering glacier rolled.
Down from the broad St. Lawrence,
Bright with its thousand isles,
Through the Canadian woodlands,
Sweet with the summer smiles,
On over field and fastness,
Village and vantage coigne,
Rolled the resistless legions
Led by the bold Burgoyne.
Roared the craggy ledges
Looming o'er Lake Champlain;
Red with the blaze of navies
Quivered the land-locked main;
Soared the Vancour eagle,
Screaming, across the sun;
Deep dived the loon in terror
Under Lake Horicon.
Panther and hart together
Fled to the wilds afar,
From the flash and the crash of the cannon
And the rush of the southward war.
But at last by the lordly river
The trampling giant swayed,
And his massive arm swung eastward
Like a blindly-plunging blade.
New England felt her bosom
Menaced with deadly blow,
And her minute-men sprang up again
And flew to bar the foe.
But Stark in his Hampshire valley
Watched like a glowering bear,
That hears the cry go sweeping by
Yet stirs not from his lair;