High boots of buckskin, as he drew
The rein, a jewel burst to bloom:
The signet ring of doom.

'Thrice round the fort! Then as I raise
This hand, aim all and murder well!'
His head bends low; the steed's eyes blaze,
But not less bright do Herman's gaze,
As circling round the citadel,
He peers for hope in hell.

Fast were the gates; no crevice showed.
The ramparts, spiked with palisades,
Grew higher as once round he rode;
The arquebusiers prime the load,
And drop to aim from ambuscades;
No latch, no loophole aids.

But one small hut its chimney thrust
Between the timbers, close as they;
Twice round and with a desperate trust
Lord Herman muttered: "die I must:
_There_, CHARGE!" and spurred through beam and clay--
"By heaven! he is away!"

VI.--THE KILLS.

In clouds of dust the muskets fire,
And volleying oaths old Stuyvesant from:
"Turn out! In yonder Kills he'll mire,
Or drown, unless the fiends conspire.
Mount! Follow! Still he must succumb--
That tide was never swum."

Through hut and chimney, down the ditch
And up the bank, plunge horse and man;
And down the Kills of bramble pitch,
Oft-stumbling, those old gray knees which,
Hunting the raccoon, led the van;
Now, limp yet game he ran.

But cool and supple, Herman sat,
His mind at work, his frame the horse's,
And knew with each pulsation, that
Past foe and fen, past crag, and flat,
And marsh, the steed he nearer forces
To the broad sea's recourses.

"Old friend," he thought, "thou art too weak
To try the Kills and drown, or falter,
The while from shore their marksmen seek
My heart. (Once o'er the Chesapeake
I paddled oarless.) Lest the halter
Be mine, I must not palter--

"Thou diest, though my marriage-gift:
I still can swim. Poor Joost, adieu!"
Ere ceased the heartfelt sigh he lift,
The prospect widened: all adrift,
The salty sluice burst into view,
Where grappling tides fought through,

And sucked to doom the venturous bear,
And from his ferry swept the rower--
How wide, how terrible, how fair!
Yet how inspiriting the air--
How tempts the long salt grass the mower!
How treacherous the shore!

Far up the right spread Newark Bay,
To lone Secauc