When hearts, whose truth was proven,
Like thine, are laid in earth,
There should a wreath be woven
To tell the world their worth;
And I, who woke each morrow
To clasp thy hand in mine,
Who shared thy joy and sorrow,
Whose weal and woe were thine:
It should be mine to braid it
Around thy faded brow,
But I've in vain essayed it,
And feel I cannot now.
While memory bids me weep thee,
Nor thoughts nor words are free,
The grief is fixed too deeply
That mourns a man like thee.
Fitz-Greene Halleck.
In 1824, at the invitation of Congress and President Monroe, the Marquis de Lafayette, who had played so important a part in the revolution, visited the United States. He arrived in New York August 15, and for the next fourteen months travelled through the country, visiting every state, and being everywhere received with reverence and affection. On June 17, 1825, he laid the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument.
ON LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT
[June 17, 1825]
Oh, is not this a holy spot?
'Tis the high place of Freedom's birth!
God of our fathers! is it not
The holiest spot of all the earth?
Quenched is thy flame on Horeb's side;
The robber roams o'er Sinai now;
And those old men, thy seers, abide
No more on Zion's mournful brow.