Felicia Dorothea Browne Hemans (September 25, 1793-May 16, 1835) was an English poet. She was noted for her naturalness and simplicity. Sir Walter Scott wrote the epilogue for her play, The Vespers of Palermo. Felicia Hemans is best known to American readers for her work, The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, in which she penned:
<What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?
They sought a faith's pure shrine!
Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where they first trod!
They have left unstained what there they found -
Freedom to worship God.> 1793FH001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1793FH001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Felicia Dorothea Browne Hemans. The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, st. 10. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 470.