Amsterdam's the cradle where the race was rocked--
All the ships of all the world to her harbor flocked.
Rosy with the sea-wind, solid, stubborn, sweet,
Played the children by canals, up and down the street.
Neltje, Piet and Hendrik, Dirck and Myntje too,--
Little Nick of Leyden sailed his wooden shoe.
"Quarter-deck and cabin--rig her fore-and-aft,"--
Thus he murmured wisely as he launched his craft.
"Cutlass, pike and musquetoun, howitzer and shot--
But our knives and mirrors and beads are worth the lot."
Room enough for cargo to last a year or two,
In the round amidships of a wooden shoe!
Bobbing on the waters of the Nieuwe Vlei
See the bantam galleot, short and broad and high.
Laden for the Indies, trading all the way,
Frank and shrewd and cautious, fiery in a fray,--
Sagamore and mandarin are all the same to you,
Little Nick of Leyden with your wooden shoe!