Up-root, too, my choicest land; Still and dumb, the while, I stand, In the hope, my mother's arm Will protect me from the harm. She can succor my distress. Now my wish, my sole request,-- Is for men to till my land; So I'll not in silence stand. I have lab'rors almost none; Let my household large become; I'll my mother's kitchen furnish With my knick-knacks, with my surplus; With tobacco, furs and grain; So that Prussia she'll disdain. JACOB STEENDAM, noch vaster. In spite of this neglect, the new town thrived apace. Friendly relations were established with the settlers at Plymouth, and the colony seemed to be moving steadily toward a golden future. In May, 1647, there arrived from Holland the new director, Peter Stuyvesant. He ruled supreme until 1664, when New Amsterdam surrendered to an English fleet. PETER STUYVESANT'S NEW YEAR'S CALL [I. Jan. A. C. 1661] Where nowadays the Battery lies, New York had just begun, A new-born babe, to rub its eyes, In Sixteen Sixty-One. They christened it Nieuw Amsterdam, Those burghers grave and stately, And so, with schnapps and smoke and psalm, Lived out their lives sedately. Two windmills topped their wooden wall, On Stadthuys gazing down, On fort, and cabbage-plots, and all The quaintly gabled town; These flapped 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 walked by day, And smoked, and wagged their heads. No changeful fashions came from France, The freulen to bewilder, And cost the burgher's purse, perchance, Its 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-fashioned 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 stamped through drifts to do the chores, Beshrewing all such weather. But--after herring, ham, and kraut-- To all the gathered town The Dominie preached the morning out, In Calvinistic gown; While tough old Peter Stuyvesant Sat pewed 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 missed, though now the day was old, An ancient fellow-feaster,-- Heer Govert Loockermans, that bold Brewer and burgomeester;