Now thank God for the women
Who dared the perilous sea
With our adventurous ancestors,
To bear them company!
They sailed, they knew not whither,
They came, nor questioned why,
But that the men-folk whom they loved
Without their care would die.
Babes newly born they carried,
And bairns with wavering feet;
But never a cow was there for milk,
And never a stove for heat.
Through icy waves they landed,
They washed in frozen streams;
They shivered through the nights of dread
With horror in their dreams.
Through toil and want and danger
High-hearted they could wait;
They lived and died for the commonweal,
And mothered a nursling State.
They had no voice in meeting,
No vote in pact or law;
But of their flesh and blood is built
Our strength for peace and war.
Thank God for the brave women
Of a hard three-hundred years!
Have they not earned a nation’s trust
Through sacrifice and tears?