Their names have been forgotten long; The stone, but not a word, remains; They cannot live in deathless song, Nor breathe in pious strains. Yet this sublime obscurity, to me More touching is, than poet's rhapsody.
They live in millions that now breathe; They live in millions yet unborn, And pious gratitude shall wreathe As bright a crown as e'er was worn, And hang it on the green leav'd bough, That whispers to the nameless dead below.
No one that inspiration drinks; No one that loves his native land; No one that reasons, feels, or thinks, Can 'mid these lonely ruins stand, Without a moisten'd eye, a grateful tear Of reverent gratitude to those that moulder here.
The mighty shade now hovers round— Of HIM whose strange, yet bright career, Is written on this sacred ground In letters that no time shall sere; Who in the old world smote the turban'd crew, And founded Christian Empires in the new.
And SHE! the glorious Indian maid, The tutelary of this land, The angel of the woodland shade, The miracle of God's own hand, Who join'd man's heart to woman's softest grace, And thrice redeem'd the scourgers of her race.
Sister of charity and love, Whose life-blood was soft Pity's tide, Dear Goddess of the Sylvan grove. Flower of the Forest, nature's pride, He is no man who does not bend the knee, And she no woman who is not like thee!
Jamestown, and Plymouth's hallow'd rock, To me shall ever sacred be— I care not who my themes may mock, Or sneer at them and me. I envy not the brute who here can stand, Without a prayer for his own native land.
And if the recreant crawl her earth, Or breathe Virginia's air, Or, in New-England claim his birth, From the old Pilgrim's there, He is a bastard, if he dare to mock, Old Jamestown's shrine, or Plymouth's famous rock.