The following poem was written by Major Andre after the attack of Wayne
upon a block-house, near Bull's Ferry. The last canto was published in Riving-
ton's Gazette, on the day when Andre was captured at Tarrytown. I copied this
from an original copy in the handwriting of Andre himself; and I made a
facsimile of the last stanza as it appears in that copy. It is written upon small
folio paper, and under the endorsement of Andre himself are the following lines :
—Lossing.
" When the epic strain was sung,
The poet by the neck ¦was hung;
And to his cost he finds too late,
The dung-born tribe decides his fate."
^ArA,^^
Elizabethtown, Aug. I, 1780.
CanTo i.
To drive the kine one summer's morn,
The tanner took his way,
The calf shall rue that is unborn
The jumbling of that day.
And Wayne descending steers shall know,
And tauntingly deride,
And call to mind, in ev'ry low,
The tanning of his hide.
Yet Bergen cows still ruminate
Unconscious in the stall,
What mighty means were used to get,
And lose them after all.
For many heroes bold and brave
From New Bridge and Tapaan,
And those that drink Passaic's wave,
And those that eat soupaan.
And sons of distant Delaware,
And still remoter Shannon,
And Major Lee with horses rare,
And Proctor with his cannon.
AH wondrous proud in arms they came-
What hero could refuse,
To tread the rugged path to fame,
Who had a pair of shoes ?
