Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79. | | | | Central and Southern Africa: Cape Colony | | Genadendal | | Thomas Pringle (1789–1834) |
| | | | Genadendal, or the “Vale of Grace,” is the chief Moravian settlement in South Africa. |
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IN distant Europe oft I ’ve longed to see | |
| This quiet “Vale of Grace”; to list the sound | |
| Of moaning brooks and mellow turtles, round | |
| The patriarch Schmidt’s old consecrated tree; | |
| To hear the hymns of solemn melody, | 5 |
| Rising from the sequestered burial-ground; | |
| To see the heathen taught, the lost sheep found, | |
| The blind restored, the long-oppressed set free. | |
| All this I ’ve witnessed now, and pleasantly | |
| Its memory shall in my heart remain; | 10 |
| But closer and yet kinder ties there be, | |
| That bind me to this spot with grateful chain; | |
| For it hath been a Sabbath home to me | |
| Through lingering months of solitude and pain. | | | |
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