The Holland Society of New York - Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 115 text:

. 39 Before him lay long miles of arid plain 3 Around him valleys full of plenty smiled. He yoked his oxen to the lumbering wain, The jambok spoke in menace shrill and wild. Each mighty beast, submissive, bent his neck, And the Boer started on his long, long trek, Came days of aching toil. Night after night He faced Death, eye to eye, and stared him down. With naked fist he met the lion in iightf And sent him scurrying to his jungles brown. The savage blacks who came to spoil and slay Reeled back before the laager's stern array. Oh, Freedom, dear, if ever man there was, In all the ages, earned thy favoring smile, This patient man has earned it. In his cause Pleads all the world to-day. Yea, even that Isle That hisses hate of him, thrills, too, with strong Deep notes of protest against England's wrong. . 7 Gold! Gold ! Gold ! Gold ! The cry filled all the air, And wrought like magic on the hearts of men. The restless souls in every land who dare Shake dice with Fate, felt the blood leap again. 1 They came in squads - in troops -in rushing stream, Their motto ever this : Follow the gleam I But most were men of that proud race who hold The Triple Isle as trident of the sea. What ! was this Boer to rule a realm of gold? His slow hand time the march of Destiny? So came the clash, and on Majuba Hill I That slow hand proved its swift, unerring skill. The old Colossus spanned the Rhodian Bay 5 A continent, the new one would bestride, From Cape to Cairo drive his iron way, And a new empire for his Queen provide. ' An earthquake laid the old Colossus low, The new one laughs amid the earthquake's throe. The lust for gold and lust for empire found That the bold Dutchman dared their way to block.

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rf 3 ' eri n HOW THE DUTCH PRESERVED THE ' FREEDOM, IN BODY AND MIND, OP MIDDLE EUROPE, IN 1639. BY BREV. MAJOR-GEN. I. WATTS DE PEYSTER, NEW YORK, A.M., Litt. D., Ph.D., LL.D. ftwicel, Member of the Holland Society. T is very strange how, in two crises of modern European affairs, the English or British peo- ple arrogated to themselves the whole glory of two great victories, when, in pure honesty and sober truth, the Seven United States, or Prov- inces, of Holland, were in one case entitled to a full share of the glory-namely, in the destruction of the Invincible Armada, in 1588-and in the other case, Blucher and his Prussian army deserve the credit for the Hnal overthrow of i Napoleon, saving the British from annihilation at Waterloo. In the case of the Invincible Armada, 1588, Michelet especially tells us : Besides the Hollandzkh ships which joined with the English in attacking the ' Invincible Armada,' it should be borne in mind that the Siczfes of Holland had pefmzeied one Zhozesand of Meir mos! experzefzeed sezilofs io serve as wlzmieers on board fize QI