“Die, traitor; fleer! though thou ’scape
      Our ambush on thy devil’s racer,
    Caught here upon this marshy cape,
    Thy bones the muskrat’s brood shall scrape,
      The sturgeon suck—­Death thy embracer!”
      So shouts each sanguine chaser.

    To die in sight of Amstel’s walls,
      And gallant Joost to die beside him?—­
    O foolish blast, such fate that calls! 
    O river that the heart appalls! 
      Dear Joost may live.  And they bestride him? 
      “By hell! none else shall ride him!

    “My steed, thy limbs like mine are sore! 
      Few years are left us ere the billows
    Roll over both.  Come but once more,
    And to the bottom or the shore,
      Bear me and thee to happy pillows,
      Or ’neath the water willows!”

    He strokes old Joost.  He bends him low. 
      He winds his horn and laughs derision. 
    One spring!—­they’ve cleared the bog and sloe,
    And down the ebb tide buoyant go—­
      That stately tide.  So like a vision
      Of home, to Norse and Frisian,

    Where full a league spread Maas and Rhine,
      And in the marsh the rice-birds twitter;
    The long cranes pasture and the kine
    Loom lofty in the misty shine
      Of dawn and reedy islands glitter: 
      Yet death all where is bitter.

    Ere out of range a volley peals,
      But greed too great made aye a blunder. 
    His horse Lord Herman’s self conceals,
    Yet once his horse and he go under,
      And rise again.  No wound he feels. 
      They hold their fire in wonder!

    Short of the mark the bullets splash: 
      “Now drown thee, wizard! at thy pleasure,”
    The Dutchmen hiss through teeth they gnash. 
    He answers not; for o’er the plash
      Of waves he hears Joost’s gasping measure
      Of breath’s fast wasting treasure.

IX.—­PEGASUS.

    The sighs when dying comrades fall,
      Struck by the foe, are only sad;
    They leaped the ditch and climbed the wall,
    And shared the purpose of us all;
      The fame they have; the joy they had: 
      “Rest in thy tracks, brave lad!”

    But thou, poor beast! unknown to fame,
      Whose heart is reached while ours is bounding,
    Amidst the victory’s acclaim—­
    By thee we kneel with more of shame,
      That bore us through the fight resounding,
      And dumbly took our wounding!

    Lord Herman saw the blood drops seethe,
      The nag’s neck droop, the nostril bubble,
    And loosed the bridle from his teeth;
    Yet swam the old legs underneath,
      Invincibly.  The gap they double;
      But further swim in trouble.

    And lovely Nature stretched her aid,
      Her sympathetic tow and eddy;
    The oars of air with azure blade,
    And silent gravities persuade
      And waft them onward, slow and steady—­
      On duteous deeds aye ready.