Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Eutaw Springs

By Philip Freneau (1752–1832)

AT Eutaw Springs the valiant died:

Their limbs with dust are covered o’er;

Weep on, ye springs, your tearful tide;

How many heroes are no more!

If in this wreck of ruin, they

Can yet be thought to claim a tear,

O smite thy gentle breast, and say

The friends of freedom slumber here!

Thou, who shalt trace this bloody plain,

If goodness rules thy generous breast,

Sigh for the wasted rural reign;

Sigh for the shepherds sunk to rest!

Stranger, their humble groves adorn;

You too may fall, and ask a tear:

’Tis not the beauty of the morn

That proves the evening shall be clear.

They saw their injured country’s woe,

The flaming town, the wasted field;

Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;

They took the spear—but left the shield.

Led by thy conquering standards, Greene,

The Britons they compelled to fly:

None distant viewed the fatal plain,

None grieved in such a cause to die—

But, like the Parthian, famed 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 Phœbus of their own.