| Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917. | | | | Hoboken, 1825 | | By Robert Stevenson Coffin |
| | This place is opposite New York, on the Jersey shore, and has become notorious as the battle-ground of duellists.
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TO the dark, bloody shore of Hoboken is gliding | |
| The skiff of false honour, deep freighted and strong; | |
| And the sceptre of murder its helm is bestriding, | |
| While the fiends of false friendship propel it along. | |
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| Lo, their feet press the strand which the billows are laving, | 5 |
| Nor heed they the night-bird that screams through the air, | |
| And proclaims that e’er long o’er a corse shall be waving | |
| The high knotty pine, the thorn, and the briar. | |
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| The battle is closed, and all ghastly and bleeding, | |
| The friend of his murderer hath sunk to the earth; | 10 |
| And the skiff from the beach is full quickly receding, | |
| While the fate of true friendship’s their subject of mirth. | |
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| Now the spirit of Cain on the steep is reclining, | |
| While the dæmons of darkness dance light o’er the ground; | |
| And the grim fiends of hell for the murderer are twining | 15 |
| The flowers of the nightshade his temples around. | | | |
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