The Crossing
―The
Coming of the Dane
An ancient Viking blood
Coursed his Nordic vein,
As o'er the ocean flood,
Coursed my ancestral Dane.
Jeff Peter was his name,
Initialed as J. P.,
The son of Peter Kruse,
But Kruser came to be.
His voyage long ago
Was before the century last,
In '71 or so,
He crossed the Atlantic vast.
O westward he did go,
His ship did plow the main,
And down the bow, below,
The water was cleft in twain.
I muse that he,
Saw the sea,
That restless sea,
Meet the sky afore
And pondered life to be,
Upon the distant shore.
And that, beyond the wake,
Where family could fill a tome,
He looked with lingering ache,
Afar in mind to home...
O yond, that trackless sea,
His heart, it yet did cling,
To where he grew to be,
As water did round him ring...
Like a great encircling moat,
The surface of the ocean,
Surrounded his "castle boat,"
His ship asea in motion...
Its drawbridge would be
A gangplank, where he
Would venture forth
Upon America North...
After days between sea and sky,
Land was drawing nigh...
Beyond the waves of the sea
Another would hove to view:
A flag a-waving free,
The red, the white and blue...
The New World would be
Unfurled to see...
―John Riedell
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Site Last Updated on 10/06/07