More than threescore years are buried With the ages long departed, In the annals of Lancaster, Of the city I am singing, Since the place of law and justice, Since the venerable forum, The first court-house was erected. Seventeen hundred eight and ninety, Reads the record of the city. Logs adorned its sides and summit, Logs without and logs within it, Building fashioned all so lowly, That 'twas deemed unfit to linger On its public, broad arena, In the center of the township. Down it fell one day thereafter, (In eighteen hundred and eleven, Of the ever moving cycle,) And a nobler and a better, Made of brick and stone and mortar, Reared its ghostly head among us, Reared its high and white cupola, With its bell and towering belfry, Clanging far and clanging nearer, Tolling loud and tolling softly, Ringing forth the day's proceedings. Strangers, coming to the region Of the city quaintly outlined, Of its square, right-angle outlines, Saw from hill-tops in the distance, Saw from valleys and from lowlands, This great pile of architecture, In the central broad arena, In the middle of the township. Fence of stone with iron railing, By and by extended round it, Blooming locusts brown and lofty Cast their cooling shadows o'er it. On its rostrum men of power Oft declaimed to judge and jury; At its bar were earnest pleadings For the erring and the guilty. In its halls were panoramas, Lectures, shows, and exhibitions, All the public entertainments, All the tragic and the comic, All the festivals and music, All the city's merry-making. 'Round and 'round the gorgeous structure, (Gorgeous in that generation,) Stood in rows the public houses, Primitive and unpretending; But their tenants knew no others, They were simple, frugal tenants, They were happy in their folly. The year eighteen hundred, fifteen, (Just beyond my canto's limits,) Saw the good work of improvement, Still progressing, moving forward, Still advancing, ever onward. In the suburbs of the city, Rose a noted house of worship, Large and generous in model, Called Republican and holy, Called Old Church in eras later, Where all Christian sects might gather, Save the Catholics, named Roman, And the curious Shaking Quakers. These might not be met as fellows, By the followers of Jesus; These were aliens from the sheepfold. All around the sacred building, Slept the dead, both high and lowly, (For death came into the city,) All around the sacred building, Tombs and slabs of stone and granite, Marked the resting of the sainted, Marked the resting of the wicked, Of the infant and the aged, Of the slave and of the master, Of the mourned, the loved departed. And the Sabbath bells came pealing, In sweet echoes on the breezes, As the willing feet went weekly To the worship of Jehovah.