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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79.

Central and Southern Africa: Cape Colony

Genadendal

By Thomas Pringle (1789–1834)

  • Genadendal, or the “Vale of Grace,” is the chief Moravian settlement in South Africa.


  • 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,

    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;

    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.