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That little old house that seems to stoop Yellow under thatch, Like a three-sided chicken-coop, Where, if you watch, You'll see the starlings go and come All a spring morn— Half of that is my old home Where I was born.

One half a little old cottage The five of us had, Five tall sisters in a cage With our Mother and Dad. Alice she was the eldest one, Then Mary, and then me, And then Fanny, and little Joan, The last-born was she.

Never a boy that liv'd to grow Did our mother carry; She us'd to wonder how she'd do With five great girls to marry. But once I heard her say to Dad, A chain of pretty girls Made out her neck the comelier clad Than diamonds or pearls.