“My corn is gathered in the bins,”
      The Lord Augustin Herman said;
    “My wild swine romp in chincapins;
    Dried are the deer and beaver skins;
      And on Elk Mountain’s languid head
      The autumn woods are red.

    “So in my heart an autumn falls;
      I stand a lonely tree unleaved;
    And to my hermit manor walls
    The wild-goose from the water calls,
      As if to mock a man bereaved: 
      My years are nearly sheaved.

    “Go saddle me the Flemish steed
      My brother Verlett gave to me,
    What time his sister did concede
    Her dainty hand to hear me plead! 
      Poor soul! she’s mouldering by the sea
      And I with misery.”

    The slave man brought the wild-maned horse
      All wilder that with stags he grazed—­
    Bred from the seed the knightly Norse
    Rode from Araby.  Like remorse
      The eyes in his gray forehead blazed,
      As on his lord he gazed.

    “Now guard ye well my lands and stock;
      Slack not the seine, ply well the axe;
    The eagle circles o’er the flock;
    The Indian at my gates may knock: 
      The firelock prime for his attacks;
      I ride the sunrise tracks.”

    Swift as a wizard on a broom,
      The strong gray horse and rider ran,
    Adown the forest stripped of bloom. 
    By stump and bough that scarce gave room
      To pass the woodman’s caravan,
      Rode the Bohemian.

    “Lord Herman, stay,” the brewer cried,
      “And Huddy’s friendly flagon clink!”
    And martial Hinoyossa spied
    The horseman, moving with the tide
      That ebbed from Appoquinimink,
      Nor stopped to rest or drink.

    “Where rides old Herman?” Beekman mused;
      “That railing wife has turned his head.” 
    “He keeps the saddle as he used,
    In younger days, when he enthused
      Three provinces,” Pierre Alricks said,
      “And mapped their landscapes spread.”

    Broad rose Zuydt River as the sail
      Above his periauger flew;
    Loud neighed the steed to snuff the gale;
    But Herman saw not, swift and pale,
      Two carrier pigeons, winging true
      North-east, across the blue.

    They quit the cage of Stuyvesant’s spy,
      And lurking Willems’ message bore: 
    ("This morn rode Herman rapid by,
    Tow’rd Amsterdam, to satisfy
      Yet wider titles than he tore
      From shallow Baltimore!”)

II.—­REPLEVIN.

    The second sunset at his back
      From Navesink Highlands threw the shade
    Of horse and Herman, long and black,
    Across the golden ripples’ track,
      Where with the Kills the ocean played
      A measured serenade;

    There where to sea a river ran,
      Between tall hills of brown and sand,
    A mountain island rose to span
    The outlet of the Raritan,
      And made a world on either hand,
      Soft as a poet planned: