Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.

Peter Stuyvesant’s New Year’s Call

Edmund Clarence Stedman

WHERE nowadays the Battery lies,

New York had just begun,

A new-born babe, to rub its eyes,

In Sixteen Sixty-One.

They christen’d it Nieuw Amsterdam,

Those burghers grave and stately,

And so, with schnapps and smoke and psalm,

Lived out their lives sedately.

Two windmills topp’d their wooden wall,

On Stadthuys gazing down,

On fort, and cabbage-plots, and all

The quaintly-gabled town;

These flapp’d their wings and shifted backs,

As ancient scrolls determine,

To scare the savage Hackensacks,

Paumanks, and other vermin.

At night the loyal settlers lay

Betwixt their feather-beds;

In hose and breeches walk’d by day,

And smoked, and wagg’d their heads;

No changeful fashions came from France,

The vrouwleins to bewilder;

No broad-brimm’d burgher spent for pants

His every other guilder.

In petticoats of linsey-red,

And jackets neatly kept,

The vrouws their knitting-needles sped

And deftly spun and swept;

Few modern-school flirtations there

Set wheels of scandal trundling,

But youths and maidens did their share

Of staid, old-fashion’d bundling.

—The New Year opened clear and cold;

The snow, a Flemish ell

In depth, lay over Beeckman’s Wold

And Wolfert’s frozen well;

Each burgher shook his kitchen doors,

Drew on his Holland leather,

Then stamp’d thro’ drifts to do the chores,

Beshrewing all such weather.

But—after herring, ham, and kraut—

To all the gather’d town

The Dominie preach’d the morning out,

In Calvinistic gown;

While tough old Peter Stuyvesant

Sat pew’d in foremost station;

The potent, sage, and valiant

Third Governor of the nation.

Prayer over, at his mansion hall,

With cake and courtly smile,

He met the people, one and all,

In gubernatorial style;

Yet miss’d, though now the day was old,

An ancient fellow-feaster:

Heer Govert Loockermans, that bold

Brewer and burgomeester;

Who, in his farm-house, close without

The picket’s eastern end,

Sat growling at the twinge of gout

That kept him from his friend.

But Peter strapp’d his wooden peg,

When tea and cake were ended,

(Meanwhile the sound remaining leg

Its high jack-boot defended),

A woolsey cloak about him threw,

And swore, by wind and limb,

Since Govert kept from Peter’s view,

Peter would visit him;

Then sallied forth, thro’ snow and blast,

While many a humble greeter

Stood wondering whereaway so fast

Strode bluff Hardkoppig Pieter.

Past quay and cowpath, through a lane

Of vats and mounded tans,

He puff’d along, with might and main,

To Govert Loockermans;

Once there, his right of entry took,

And hail’d his ancient crony:

“Myn Gott! in dese Manhattoes, Loock,

Ve gets more snow as money!”

To which, till after whirls profound,

The other answer’d not;

At last there came responsive sound:

“Yah, Peter: yah, Myn Gott!”

Then goedevrouw Marie sat her guest

Beneath the chimney-gable,

And courtesied, bustling at her best

To spread the New Year’s table.

She brought the pure and genial schnapps,

That years before had come—

In the Nieuw Nederlandts, perhaps—

To cheer the settlers’ home;

The long-stemm’d pipes; the fragrant roll

Of press’d and crispy Spanish;

Then placed the earthen mugs and bowl,

Nor long delay’d to vanish.

Thereat, with cheery nod and wink,

And honours of the day,

The trader mix’d the Governor’s drink

As evening sped away.

That ancient room! I see it now:

The carven nutwood dresser;

The drawers, that many a burgher’s vrouw

Begrudged their rich possessor;

The brace of high-back’d, leathern chairs,

Brass-nail’d at every seam;

Six others, ranged in equal pairs;

The bacon hung a-beam;

The chimney-front, with porcelain shelf;

The hearty wooden fire;

The picture, on the steaming delft,

Of David and Goliah.

I see the two old Dutchmen sit

Like Magog and his mate,

And hear them, when their pipes are lit,

Discuss affairs of state;

The clique that would their sway demean;

The pestilent importation

Of wooden nutmegs, from the lean

And losel Yankee nation.

But when the subtle juniper

Assumed its sure command,

They drank the buxom loves that were—

They drank the Motherland;

They drank the famous Swedish wars,

Stout Peter’s special glory,

While Govert proudly show’d the scars

Of Indian contests gory.

Ere long, the berry’s power awoke

Some music in their brains,

And, trumpet-like, through rolling smoke,

Rang long-forgotten strains;

Old Flemish snatches, full of blood,

Of Phantom ships and battle;

And Peter, with his leg of wood,

Made floor and casement rattle.

Then round and round the dresser pranced,

The chairs began to wheel,

And on the board the punch-bowl danced

A Netherlandish reel;

Till midnight o’er the farmhouse spread

Her New-Year’s skirts of sable,

And, inch by inch, each puzzled head

Dropt down upon the table.

But still to Peter, as he dream’d,

That table spread and turn’d;

The chimney-log blazed high, and seem’d

To circle as it burn’d;

The town into the vision grew

From ending to beginning;

Fort, wall, and windmill met his view,

All widening and spinning.

The cowpaths, leading to the docks,

Grew broader, whirling past,

And checker’d into shining blocks

A city fair and vast;

Stores, churches, mansions, overspread

The metamorphosed island,

While not a beaver show’d his head

From Swamp to Kalchhook highland.

Eftsoons the picture pass’d away;

Hours after, Peter woke

To see a spectral streak of day

Gleam in thro’ fading smoke;

Still slept old Govert, snoring on

In most melodious numbers;

No dreams of Eighteen Sixty-One

Commingled with his slumbers.

But Peter, from the farmhouse-door,

Gazed doubtfully around,

Rejoiced to find himself once more

On sure and solid ground.

The sky was somewhat dark ahead:

Wind East, and morning lowery:

But on he push’d, a two-miles’ tread,

To breakfast at his Bouwery.