When the bright arms of Albion bore
Rude war, to thy affrighted shore;
When Britain’s cross, in warlike form,
Lower’d oe’r thee like a thunder storm;
Then, from their wild, uncouth domain
The hardy patriots sallied forth,
Display’d, on bloody battle plain,
Their generous ardor, loyal worth;
There nature in her bosom wild,
Had nurs’d her patriotic child,
Who gave my native soil a name,
Undying as creations frame.
His was the valor that imparts
Its influence to his followers’ hearts;
His was the skill his foes to foil
In every art, escape each toil,
Insure success by wise delay,
Or sudden snatch the prize away.
XXXI
In childhood, to my listening ear,
O! Washington! thy name was dear;
Embalm’d in every freeman’s breast,
The memory of thy deeds shall rest;
The first on glory’s radiant line,
In after days, thy name shall shine,
The freeman’s beacon blaze of war,
Columbia’s proudly beaming star.
First in the senate’s grave debate;
First at the troubled helm of state;
Thy name shall fill the future page,
The greatest of the present age.
XXXII
Such were the charms that pleas’d my eye,
When infant years flew swiftly by.
Past are those scenes, those days are fled,
Those joys are sleeping with the dead;
The world has oped her gaudy store
Of pleasures, unconceived before;
Far from my childhood’s happy home,
My wand’ring footsteps widely roam.
Ah; to whatever clime I stray,
Fond memory still shall point the way,
To the lone, undisturb’d retreat,
Where sped life’s morning, bright and fleet,—
Where childhood’s hours were gaily spent
With virtue, peace, and sweet content.
The beauties of a lovelier sky
Speak less of heaven to my eye,
The verdure of a distant plain,
The billows of a foreign main,
Raise not the rapture of delight,
Like scenes that charm our infant sight.
XXXIII
Oh home! thou dearest, loveliest spot,
However bleak, however wild!—
Thy mem’ry time can never blot,
Whate’er thro’ life may be my lot.
Still, thou shalt charm thy wand’ring child;
Tho’ many a ling’ring year has past,
Since thy fond circle shed the tear,
(To one bright eye it was the last)
And many heav’d a sigh sincere,
That sorrow, genuine sorrow started,
When from thy blest retreats I parted;—
Still, tho’ the wreaths that fancy braided
In thy lov’d bosom, long have faded,
Those friends who lov’d my infancy,
Claim still my bosom’s warmest sigh,
They love me still, no fate can sever
That faithful bond that bides for ever;
A mother’s fond unfeigning love,
Fails only, with the throb of life,
It cannot false, or faithless prove,
By wo unmov’d, unaw’d by strife.
Oh dearer far than wealth, or fame,
Is a lov’d mother’s honor’d name,—
It leads us in our early way,
Ere reason lends its guardian ray;
It points to virtue’s bright reward,
It bids us shun deceitful vice,
Persuasion drops from every word,
And love attunes that heavenly voice.
XXXIV
But he, whose pure affection blest
With friendship’s flame my days of rest,
My brother—generous, brave, and gay,[A]
Where sleep his limbs in dull decay?
Enshrin’d not were his relics cold,
O’er his deep grave no prayer was told;
No sigh breath’d softly o’er his bier,
And none, save strangers, shed a tear;
A last sad tear, at life’s dark close,
The end of all our joys and woes.
There famine’s meagre power was nigh,
Sunk was the cheek, the hollow eye,
Rob’d of its lustre, dimly view’d
One mighty sweep of billows rude;
No happy isle strikes on its fading beam,
Faintly its orb emits a dying gleam;
He turns, instinctive, his receding sight,
Towards that dear land where first he saw the light.
Then did remembrance, to his anguish’d heart,
Each youthful scene, with all its joys impart;
Barb’d every pang that rent his laboring breast,
And death’s pale form in tenfold horrors drest:
Then, came that tender, momentary thought,
With wildest, deepest, mortal anguish fraught,
It dwelt on those, who, in the morn of life
Had blest his boyhood, free from noise and strife:
Then, as his last, his lonely prayers arise,
On the wild blast, he struggles, gasps, and dies!—
Midst coral caves, in ocean’s bosom deep,
Brother belov’d! O tranquil be thy sleep!
Round the gay clusters of the green Ladrones,
The sea-gale sighs, the rushing billow moans,
There murm’rings soft, shall lull thy form to rest;
Thy soul shall dwell in regions of the blest.
[A] One of the company of the ship Resource, lost in the China seas, Nov. 20th, 1818.