WASHINGTON.
[On a visit to the tomb of Washington at Mount Vernon, April 28th, 1822, the writer picked out and selected from the rude earthen mound which covers it, some plain mineralogical fragments, which he deposited in a neat paper box in his cabinet, with the following lines:]
These little relics, if they show No ruby’s tint, no diamond’s glow, Yet shall they shed upon my heart, A joy that gems can ne’er impart, And exercise upon my mind, A power of talismanic kind; A power to think, to act, to feel— In youth and manhood, wo and weal; Like him, the lov’d, the great, the blest, Whose hallowed tomb they lately prest— To emulate his noble fires, His measured aims, his chaste desires, His firmness in the trying hour, His mod’rate use of fame and power; In social round, his skill to please, His stately manners, mix’d with ease, And all those virtues great and bland, Which erst aroused an injur’d land, And raised its strength, and winged its ires, And fann’d its hopes, and curb’d its fires, And spoke by act, by sword and pen, Him first of heroes, first of men.
When prest by thought, or danger tried, By slander stung, or rage defied; These relics shall afford a clue, The bold to awe, the strong subdue. And if, in some propitious hour, One deed of fame, one ray of power, A wayward fortune should decree To one so poor and lone as me, Still should my thoughts to Vernon turn, To ponder on the hero’s urn, And, in whispering accents, breathe My reverence for the dust beneath— The sacred dust, which, living, won, And, dead—still! still! is Washington: And each proud hope, and each lone sigh, Shall be, like him to live, to die.
And when I see the scholar pore On deeds of glorious fame of yore; Trimming his lamp, at midnight hour, To trace the wrecks of bygone power; Or stealing through sequestered groves, To sip the tale of Grecian loves; Or pond’ring on the double doom, Where fame and valor fell with Rome; And when I hear th’ enthusiast tell How Fabius foil’d, Marcellus fell, With triumph shall I quick reply, At Vernon doth a greater lie; More firm in war, more just in peace, And loved with love that ne’er can cease; But time shall seal, and rolling years Augment his fame, and swell our tears. Go! shall I say, to yon scrutoire Of shells and fossils, gems and ore, Cull’d from each clime, and marshall’d there With home-bred skill and pleasing care; Amid the glitter, thou shalt find An humble group of plainest kind, But priz’d most truly, not for dyes, But for the scene it typifies: The airy banks, the cooling groves, That mark the spot Columbia loves— A spot, which few vain marbles may, Entombs a virtuous hero’s clay. Go! and peruse!—no chemic fame, No foreign, harsh, pedantic name, With slavish, trite, empiric air, Inscribes the group enchased there. With pious hand I cull’d these stones Upon the tomb that wraps his bones: He who, while living, ever shin’d, And, dying, left no peer behind; Let no rude hand, or unadvis’d, Molest the boon so lov’d, so priz’d.