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Written at Mount Vernon, August, 1786
BY broad Potomac’s azure tide, | |
| Where Vernon’s mount, in sylvan pride, | |
| Displays its beauties far, | |
| Great Washington, to peaceful shades, | |
| Where no unhallowed wish invades, | 5 |
| Retired from fields of war. | |
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| Angels might see, with joy, the sage, | |
| Who taught the battle where to rage, | |
| Or quenched its spreading flame, | |
| On works of peace employ that hand, | 10 |
| Which waved the blade of high command, | |
| And hewed the path to fame. | |
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| Let others sing his deeds in arms, | |
| A nation saved, and conquest’s charms: | |
| Posterity shall hear, | 15 |
| ’T was mine, returned from Europe’s courts, | |
| To share his thoughts, partake his sports, | |
| And soothe his partial ear. | |
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| To thee, my friend, these lays belong: | |
| Thy happy seat inspires my song, | 20 |
| With gay, perennial blooms, | |
| With fruitage fair, and cool retreats, | |
| Whose bowery wilderness of sweets | |
| The ambient air perfumes. | |
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| Here spring its earliest buds displays, | 25 |
| Here latest on the leafless sprays | |
| The plumy people sing; | |
| The vernal shower, the ripening year, | |
| The autumnal store, the winter drear, | |
| For thee new pleasures bring. | 30 |
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| Here, lapped in philosophic ease, | |
| Within thy walks, beneath thy trees, | |
| Amidst thine ample farms, | |
| No vulgar converse heroes hold, | |
| But past or future scenes unfold, | 35 |
| Or dwell on nature’s charms. | |
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| What wondrous era have we seen, | |
| Placed on this isthmus, half between | |
| A rude and polished state! | |
| We saw the war tempestuous rise, | 40 |
| In arms a world, in blood the skies, | |
| In doubt an empire’s fate. | |
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| The storm is calmed, serened the heaven, | |
| And mildly o’er the climes of even | |
| Expands the imperial day: | 45 |
| “O God, the source of light supreme, | |
| Shed on our dusky morn a gleam, | |
| To guide our doubtful way! | |
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| “Restrain, dread Power, our land from crimes! | |
| What seeks, though blest beyond all times, | 50 |
| So querulous an age? | |
| What means to freedom such disgust; | |
| Of change, of anarchy the lust, | |
| The fickleness and rage?” | |
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| So spake his country’s friend, with sighs, | 55 |
| To find that country still despise | |
| The legacy he gave,— | |
| And half he feared his toils were vain, | |
| And much that man would court a chain, | |
| And live through vice a slave. | 60 |
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| A transient gloom o’ercast his mind; | |
| Yet, still on providence reclined, | |
| The patriot fond believed, | |
| That power benign too much had done, | |
| To leave an empire’s task begun, | 65 |
| Imperfectly achieved. | |
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| Thus buoyed with hope, with virtue blest, | |
| Of every human bliss possessed, | |
| He meets the happier hours: | |
| His skies assume a lovelier blue, | 70 |
| His prospects brighter rise to view, | |
| And fairer bloom his flowers. | |
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