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| SHADE of Herrick, Muse of Locker, | |
| Help me sing of Knickerbocker! | |
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| BOUGHTON, had you bid me chant | |
| Hymns to Peter Stuyvesant, | |
| Had you bid me sing of Wouter, | 5 |
| (He! the Onion-head! the Doubter!) | |
| But to rhyme of this one—Mocker! | |
| Who shall rhyme to Knickerbocker? | |
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| Nay, but where my hand shall fail, | |
| There the more shall yours avail: | 10 |
| You shall take your brush and paint | |
| All that ring of figures quaint,— | |
| All those Rip Van Winkle jokers, | |
| All those solid-looking smokers, | |
| Pulling at their pipes of amber, | 15 |
| In the dark-beamed Council Chamber. | |
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| Only art like yours can touch | |
| Shapes so dignified—and Dutch; | |
| Only art like yours can show | |
| How the pine logs gleam and glow, | 20 |
| Till the firelight laughs and passes | |
| ’Twixt the tankards and the glasses, | |
| Touching with responsive graces | |
| All those grave Batavian faces, | |
| Making bland and beatific | 25 |
| All that session soporific. | |
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| Then I come and write beneath: | |
| BOUGHTON, he deserves the wreath; | |
| He can give us form and hue— | |
| This the Muse can never do! | 30 |
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