A prince among your towering race,
What more your vanished form endears
Is that your presence in this place
Had been at least one hundred years;
And men that long in dust have laid,
When boys, beneath your shadow played.
You had your time to feel the sun,
To wanton in his cheering ray;—
That time is past, your race is run,
And we have nothing more to say,
Than, may your oaken spirit go
Among Elysian oaks below.
[197] From the edition of 1809.
STANZAS ON THE DECEASE OF THOMAS PAINE
Who died at New-York, on the 8th of June, 1809[198]
Princes and kings decay and die
And, instant, rise again:
But this is not the case, trust me,
With men like Thomas Paine.
In vain the democratic host
His equal would attain:
For years to come they will not boast
A second Thomas Paine.
Though many may his name assume;
Assumption is in vain;
For every man has not his plume—
Whose name is Thomas Paine.
Though heaven bestow'd on all its sons
Their proper share of brain,
It gives to few, ye simple ones,
The mind of Thomas Paine.