They saw their injur'd country's woe;
The flaming town, the wasted field;
Then rush'd to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear—but left the shield.
Led by thy conquering genius, Greene,
The Britons they compell'd to fly:
None distant view'd the fatal plain,
None griev'd, in such a cause, to die,—
But, like the Parthians, fam'd of old,
Who, flying, still their arrows threw;
These routed Britons, full as bold
Retreated, and retreating slew.
Now rest in peace, our patriot band;
Though far from Nature's limits thrown,
We trust they find a happier land,
A brighter sunshine of their own.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
[Sidenote: July 8, 1775] This is a fragment from the ode for the centenary of Washington's taking command of the American army at Cambridge.
Soldier and statesman, rarest unison;
High-poised example of great duties done
Simply as breathing, a world's honors worn
As life's indifferent gifts to all men born;
Dumb for himself, unless it were to God,
But for his barefoot soldiers eloquent,
Tramping the snow to coral where they trod,
Held by his awe in hollow-eyed content;
Modest, yet firm as Nature's self; unblamed
Save by the men his nobler temper shamed;
Never seduced through show of present good
By other than unsetting lights to steer
New-trimmed in Heaven, nor than his steadfast mood
More steadfast, far from rashness as from fear,
Rigid, but with himself first, grasping still
In swerveless poise the wave-beat helm of will;
Not honored then or now because he wooed
The popular voice, but that he still withstood;
Broad-minded, higher-souled, there is but one
Who was all this and ours, and all men's—WASHINGTON.