That I should see his chosen bride,

And soon he cried: “Behold her now,

Yon maiden of the peerless brow.

The richest, claims the fairest hand

In happy Broek-in-Waterland!”

I looked, and swift as lightning dart

A hopeless anguish seized my heart!

It once had been my lot to save

A maiden from the Zuyder’s wave;

I bore her to her friends on shore,