Then his beard became more grizzled, and his wild blue eye grew wilder, And more sharply curved his hawk’s-nose, snuffing battle from afar; And he and the two boys left, though the Kansas strife waxed milder, Grew more sullen, till was over the bloody Border War, And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Had gone crazy, as they reckoned by his fearful glare and frown. So he left the plains of Kansas and their bitter woes behind him, Slipt off into Virginia, where the statesmen all are born, Hired a farm by Harper’s Ferry, and no one knew where to find him, Or whether he’d turned parson, or was jacketed and shorn; For Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Mad as he was, knew texts enough to wear a parson’s gown. He bought no ploughs and harrows, spades and shovels, and such trifles; But quietly to his rancho there came, by every train, Boxes full of pikes and pistols, and his well-beloved Sharp’s rifles; And eighteen other madmen joined their leader there again. Says Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, “Boys, we’ve got an army large enough to march and take the town! “Take the town, and seize the muskets, free the negroes and then arm them; Carry the County and the State, ay, and all the potent South. On their own heads be the slaughter, if their victims rise to harm them— These Virginians! who believed not, nor would heed the warning mouth.” Says Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, “The world shall see a Republic, or my name is not John Brown.” ’Twas the sixteenth of October, on the evening of a Sunday: “This good work,” declared the captain, “shall be on a holy night!” It was on a Sunday evening, and before the noon of Monday, With two sons, and Captain Stephens, fifteen privates—black and white, Captain Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Marched across the bridged Potomac, and knocked the sentry down; Took the guarded armory-building, and the muskets and the cannon; Captured all the county majors and the colonels, one by one; Scared to death each gallant scion of Virginia they ran on, And before the noon of Monday, I say, the deed was done. Mad Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, With his eighteen other crazy men, went in and took the town. Very little noise and bluster, little smell of powder made he; It was all done in the midnight, like the Emperor’s _coup d’état_. “Cut the wires! Stop the rail-cars! Hold the streets and bridges!” said he, Then declared the new Republic, with himself for guiding star,— This Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown; And the bold two thousand citizens ran off and left the town.