I will scourge them for the sneer, for the venom that they carry;
I will shake their hearts with fear as the land around I harry:
They shall find the midnight raid waking them from fitful slumbers;
They shall find the ball and blade daily thinning out their numbers:
Barn in ashes, cattle slain, hearth on which there glows no ember,
Neatless plough and horseless wain; thus the rebels shall remember
Jack, the Regular!"
Well he kept his promise then with a fierce, relentless daring,
Fire to rooftrees, death to men, through the Bergen valleys bearing:
In the midnight deep and dark came his vengeance darker, deeper—