Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79.
Genadendal
By Thomas Pringle (17891834)
I
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.