Classic Poem

Brave Holland of the broad sea nursed,
Where the blue billows roll and burst
From the bleak, bitter north. In thee,
Star-crowned with peace and liberty,
We hail — the Venus of the Sea! —

The heart and home of wealth and worth,
The Eden-glory of the earth;
A sea of billowy verdure drest
In rippling green, with lily crest.
In all our woes across the sea,
Bright Holland, Georgia cries to thee!

Scourged by a more than bitter tide —
With the black billows howling wide;
Wrecked to her naked soil and sky —
Reft of her all but memory!
Dear sister of like sorrows, we
Turn in our wasting woes to thee!

Of old, thy virgin liberty
Returned, a vestal, to the sea!
And ours? Her bleeding feet impress
Again the savage wilderness;
Blest if the desert's depth have wrought
For Freedom as thy deluge fought!

Teach us to front the tempest's gloom
With the long waves of light and bloom;
To plant, where flashed the flying foam,
The constant altar-fires of home,
And the shrill sea-blast's wave prolong
In the shepherd's bell and reaper's song!
To rear, by grace of grass and trees,
Of milky herds and honey-bees,
A second Holland from the seas.