Shade of Herrick, Muse of Locker, <br />Help me sing of Knickerbocker! <br />Boughton, had you bid me chant <br />Hymns to Peter Stuyvesant, <br />Had you bid me sing of Wouter, <br />He, the onion head, the doubter! <br />But to rhyme of this one—Mocker! <br />Who shall rhyme to Knickerbocker? <br />Nay, but where my hand must fail, <br />There the more shall yours avail; <br />You shall take your brush and paint <br />All that ring of figures quaint,— <br />All those Rip Van Winkle jokers, <br />All those solid-looking smokers, <br />Pulling at their pipes of amber, <br />In the dark-beamed Council Chamber. <br /> <br />Only art like yours can touch <br />Shapes so dignified—and Dutch; <br />Only art like yours can show <br />How the pine logs gleam and glow, <br />Till the firelight laughs and passes <br />'Twixt the tankards and the glasses, <br />Touching with responsive graces <br />All those grave Batavian faces, <br />Making bland and beatific <br />All that session soporific. <br /> <br />Then I come and write beneath: <br />Boughton, he deserves the wreath; <br />He can give us form and hue— <br />This the Muse can never do!<br /><br />Henry Austin Dobson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/knickerbocker/
