| |
| WHERE rolls the dark and turbid Thames | |
| His consecrated wave along, | |
| Sleeps one, than whose, few are the names | |
| More worthy of the lyre and song; | |
| Yet o’er whose spot of lone repose | 5 |
| No pilgrim eyes are seen to weep; | |
| And no memorial marble throws | |
| Its shadow where his ashes sleep. | |
| |
| Stop, stranger! there Tecumseh lies; | |
| Behold the lowly resting-place | 10 |
| Of all that of the hero dies; | |
| The Cæsar—Tully—of his race; | |
| Whose arm of strength and fiery tongue | |
| Have won him an immortal name, | |
| And from the mouths of millions wrung | 15 |
| Reluctant tribute to his fame. | |
| |
| Stop,—for ’t is glory claims thy tear! | |
| True worth belongs to all mankind; | |
| And he whose ashes slumber here, | |
| Though man in form, was god in mind. | 20 |
| What matter he was not like thee | |
| In race and color,—’t is the soul | |
| That marks man’s true divinity,— | |
| Then let not shame thy tears control. | |
| |
| Art thou a patriot?—so was he! | 25 |
| His breast was Freedom’s holiest shrine; | |
| And as thou bendest there thy knee, | |
| His spirit will unite with thine. | |
| All that a man can give he gave,— | |
| His life,—the country of his sires | 30 |
| From the oppressor’s grasp to save; | |
| In vain,—quenched are his nation’s fires. | |
| |
| Art thou a soldier? dost thou not | |
| O’er deeds chivalric love to muse? | |
| Here stay thy steps,—what better spot | 35 |
| Couldst thou for contemplation choose? | |
| The earth beneath is holy ground; | |
| It holds a thousand valiant braves; | |
| Tread lightly o’er each little mound, | |
| For they are no ignoble graves. | 40 |
| |
| Thermopylæ and Marathon, | |
| Though classic earth, can boast no more | |
| Of deeds heroic than yon sun | |
| Once saw upon this lonely shore, | |
| When in a gallant nation’s last | 45 |
| And deadliest struggle for its own, | |
| Tecumseh’s fiery spirit passed | |
| In blood, and sought its Father’s throne. | |
| |
| Oh, softly fall the summer dew, | |
| The tears of heaven, upon his sod, | 50 |
| For he in life and death was true | |
| Both to his country and his God; | |
| For oh, if God to man has given, | |
| From his bright home beyond the skies, | |
| One feeling that ’s akin to heaven, | 55 |
| ’T is his who for his country dies. | |
| |
| Rest, warrior, rest! Though not a dirge | |
| Is thine, beside the wailing blast, | |
| Time cannot in oblivion merge | |
| The light thy star of glory cast; | 60 |
| While heave yon high hills to the sky, | |
| While rolls yon dark and turbid river, | |
| Thy name and fame can never die,— | |
| Whom Freedom loves will live forever. | |
| |
