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.