Black ducks and Teal did oft alight
In ponds round Corkstown from their flight,
And when the swamp down Slater Street
Was cleared, a dozen snipes would greet
At every step the sportman's eye,
O! glorious spot of days gone by.
To listen, ah! 'twas splendid fun!
To Commissary Oriel's gun,
As with a quick well practiced eye
He made the quivering feathers fly!
There was not then one cabin sill
Laid down on famed Ashburnham Hill,
Who's heights with pine and hemlock crowned,
Towered o'er the wooded landscape round.
Then Bradish Billings farmed away
Where his descendants live to-day,
A man of enterprising fame,
Who from the land of pumpkin's came,
And pitched his tent in honor's track
Beneath the glorious Union Jack!
Then Colonel By was in a jam
Erecting the first hogsback dam,
Which vanished with Spring's sweeping flood;
But science made the structure good
By the advice of one, no civil
Engineer, with whom a level
Or other instrument of science,
Had not the most remote alliance.
'Twas built as he proposed--I'm sorry
His name from memory I can't worry,