"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 Secaucus wooded rock;
Nor could the Kill von Kull convey
Passaic's mountain flood away:
In Arthur Kill the surges choke,
The wild tides interlock.

O'er Arthur Kill the Holland farms
Their gambril roofs, red painted, show;