In Praise of New Netherland

Jacob Steendam 1615 (Kniphausen) – 1672 (Batavia)



"You poor, who know not how your living to obtain;
You affluent, who seek in mind to be content;
Choose you New Netherland, which no one shall disdain;
Before you time and stregth here fruitlessly are spent.

The birds obscure the sky, so numerous in their flight;
The animals roam wild, and flatten down the ground;
The fish swarm in the waters and exclude the light;
The oysters there, than which none better can be found;
Are piled up, heap on heap, till islands they attain;
And vegetation clothes the forest, mean and plain.

...a living view does always meet your eye,
Of Eden, and the promised land of Jacob's seed;
Who would not, then, in such a formed community,
Desire to be a Freeman; and the rights decreed,
To each and every one, by Amstel's burgher lords,
T'enjoy? and treat with honor what their rule awards?"

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

45 sec read
118

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CDCDAA XEXEFF
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 815
Words 150
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 6, 6

Jacob Steendam

Jacob Jacobsz Steendam was a Dutch poet and a minister. He collaborated with Pieter Corneliszoon Plockhoy.  more…

All Jacob Steendam poems | Jacob Steendam Books

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