Fair marshes pierced with brimming creeks,
      Where wild-fowl dived to oyster caves;
    And shores that swung to wooded peaks,
    Where many a falling water seeks
      The cascade’s plunge to reach the waves,
      And greenest farmland laves: 

    Deep tide to every roadstead slips,
      And many capes confuse the shore,
    Yet none do with their forms eclipse
    Yon ocean, made for royal ships,
      Whose swells on silver beaches roar
      And rock forevermore.

    Old Herman gazed through lengthening shades
      Far up the inland, where the spires,
    Defined on rocky palisades,
    Flung sunset from their burnished blades,
      And with their bells in evening choirs
      Breathed homesick men’s desires: 

    “New Amsterdam! ’tis thine or mine—­
      The foreground of this stately plan! 
    To me the Indian did assign
    Totem on totem, line on line—­
      Both Staten and the groves that ran
      Far up the Raritan.

    “By spiteful Stuyvesant long restrained,
      Now, while the English break his power,
    Be Achter Kill again regained
    And Herman’s title entertained,
      Here float my banner from my tower,
      Here is my right, my hour!”

III.—­THE SQUATTERS.

    He scarce had finished, when a rush,
      Like partridge through the stubble, broke,
    And armed men trod down the brush;
    A harsh voice, trembling in the hush,
      As it must either stab or choke,
      Imperiously spoke: 

    “Ye conquered men of Achter Kill,
      Whose farms by loyal toil ye got,
    True Dutchmen! give this traitor will—­
    And he is yours to loose or kill—­
      All that ye have he will allot
      Anew—­field, cradle, cot.

    “Years past, beyond our Southern bounds,
      On States’ commission sent by me,
    He mapped the English papists’ grounds,
    And like a Judas, o’er our wounds,
      Our raiment parted openly: 
      This is the man ye see!

    “Yet followed by my sleepless age,
      Fast as he rode my pigeons sped—­
    Straight as the ravens from their cage,
    Straight as the arrows of my rage,
      Straight as the meteor overhead
      That strikes a traitor dead.”

    They bound Lord Herman fast as hate,
      And bore him o’er to Staten Isle;
    Behind him closed the postern gate,
    And round him pitiless as fate,
      Closed moat and palisade and pile: 
      “Thou diest at morn,” they smile.

IV.—­STUYVESANT.

    Morn broke on lofty Staten’s height,
      O’er low Amboy and Arthur Kill;
    And ocean dallying with the light,
    Between the beaches leprous white,
      And silent hook and headland hill,
      And Stuyvesant had his will;