Robert Stevenson Coffin

This place is opposite New York, on the Jersey shore, and has become notorious as the battle-ground of duellists.

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.

Lo, their feet press the strand which the billows are laving,

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.

The battle is closed, and all ghastly and bleeding,

The friend of his murderer hath sunk to the earth;

And the skiff from the beach is full quickly receding,

While the fate of true friendship’s their subject of mirth.

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

The flowers of the nightshade his temples around.