Then

Twenty, 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!'

Submitted by Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Authorship

• by Walter De la Mare (1873 - 1956), "Then", appears in Peacock Pie: A Book of Rhymes, in 2. Boys and Girls, no. 1, first published 1913 [ author's text checked 1 time]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

• by Gary Bachlund , "Then", 2006 [medium-high voice, piano], from Pieces of Peacock Pie, no. 8. [
   text verified 1 time
  ]
• by Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1889 - 1960), "Then", 1932, published 1933 [voice and piano], from Five Children's Songs From Peacock Pie, no. 5. [
   text not verified 
  ]

Text added to the website: 2007-04-25.
Last modified: 2014-06-16 10:02:21
Line count: 12
Word count: 69

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