| |
| OH! thou, who lov’st to dwell | |
| Within some far sequester’d cell, | |
| Unknown to Folly’s noisy train, | |
| Untrod by Riot’s step profane, | |
| Meek Meditation! silent maid, | 5 |
| To thee my votive verse be paid; | |
| To thee, whose mildly pleasing power | |
| Could check wild youth’s impetuous flight, | |
| And in affection’s gloomy night | |
| Could soothe the “torturing hour,” | 10 |
| To thee the strains belong; | |
| But say, what powerful spell, | |
| What magic force of song | |
| Can lure thy solemn steps, to my uncultured bower | |
| |
| By night’s pale orb, beneath whose ray | 15 |
| With thee thy Plato oft would stray; | |
| By the brilliant star of morn | |
| That saw thee bend o’er Solon’s urn; | |
| By all the tears you shed | |
| When Numa bow’d his languid head; | 20 |
| By the mild joys that in thy breast would swell, | |
| When Antonine, by grateful realms adored, | |
| Majestic Rome’s immortal lord, | |
| Would leave the toils, the pomp of state, | |
| The crimson splendors of the victor’s car, | 25 |
| The painful pleasures of the great, | |
| The shouts of triumph, and the din of war, | |
| In Tiber’s hallowed groves with thee to dwell. | |
| |
| But ah!—on Grecian plains no more | |
| Exists the taste for ancient lore, | 30 |
| For from oppression’s scourge the muses fled; | |
| And Tiber’s willow’d banks along | |
| Where Maro pour’d the classic song, | |
| Grim superstition stalks with giant tread. | |
| |
| Yet can Columbia’s plains afford | 35 |
| The magic spell, the potent word;— | |
| A spell to charm thy sober ear, | |
| A name to thee, to freedom dear!— | |
| By the soft sigh that stole o’er Schuylkill’s wave, | |
| When he around whose urn | 40 |
| Dejected nations mourn, | |
| Immortal Franklin sunk into the grave; | |
| By his thoughts, by thee inspired; | |
| By his works by worlds admired; | |
| By the tears by science shed, | 45 |
| O’er the patriot’s dying head; | |
| By the voice of purest fame | |
| That gave to time his deathless name, | |
| By these, and every powerful spell, | |
| Oh! come meek nymph, with me to dwell. | 50 |
| |
| The garland weave for Franklin’s head, | |
| Wreaths of oak from Runnymead, | |
| Where the British barons bold | |
| Taught their king in days of old, | |
| To tremble at insulted Freedom’s frown, | 55 |
| And venerate the rights her children deem’d their own. | |
| For he, like them, intrepid rose | |
| Against insulted Freedom’s foes, | |
| Fix’d the firm barrier ’gainst oppression’s plan, | |
| And dared assert the sacred rights of man! | 60 |
| |
| And in the wreath, which Freedom’s hand shall twine | |
| To deck her champion’s ever honor’d shrine, | |
| The victor’s laurel shall be seen | |
| In folds of never-dying green; | |
| The muses too, shall bring | 65 |
| Each flow’ret of the spring, | |
| Wet with the beamy tears of morn; | |
| And there with all her tresses torn, | |
| What time meek twilight’s parting ray | |
| Sinks lingering in nights dun embrace, | 70 |
| Pale-eyed Philosophy shall stray | |
| In hopes his awful form to trace, | |
| Hovering on some pregnant cloud, | |
| From whence, while thunders burst aloud, | |
| From whence, while through the trembling air | 75 |
| In lurid streams the lightnings glare, | |
| His rod her head she ’ll wave around, | |
| And lead the harmless terrors to the ground. | |
| |
| But, should milder scenes than these | |
| Thy sober, pensive bosom please, | 80 |
| We ’ll seek the dark embrowning wood | |
| That frowns o’er broad Ohio’s flood, | |
| And while amid the gloom of night | |
| No twinkling star attracts the sight; | |
| And while beneath, the sullen tide | 85 |
| Shall in majestic silence glide, | |
| We ’ll listen to the notes of wo, | |
| By echo borne from plains below, | |
| Where Genius droops his laurel’d head, | |
| And Honor mourns a Clymer dead. | 90 |
| |
| Thou sullen flood, whose dreary shore | |
| Has oft been stain’d with streams of gore, | |
| Ah! never did a meeker tear | |
| Impearl thy banks from Virtue’s eye; | |
| Ah! never did thy breezes bear | 95 |
| A purer breath than Clymer’s sigh. | |
| Ye plains that saw sedition wave | |
| Her impious banners to the wind, | |
| With you the youth has found his grave, | |
| To you is virtue’s friend consign’d; | 100 |
| Yet still, as each succeeding race | |
| Through time to fate shall pass away, | |
| Ah! never shall your sods embrace | |
| A dearer pledge than Clymer’s clay. | |
| |
| Oft o’er the spot that wraps his head | 105 |
| Shall Pity’s softest tears be shed, | |
| There Friendship’s sacred form shall come | |
| To strow with flowers his Clymer’s tomb, | |
| And while the queen of night shall shroud | |
| Her beams behind some threatening cloud; | 110 |
| And while the western mountain’s brow | |
| The star of eve shall sink below; | |
| And while the consecrated ground | |
| Mute Melancholy stalks around, | |
| There, Meditation, shalt thou find | 115 |
| A scene to suit thy sober mind, | |
| There Fancy’s hand shall form the cell | |
| In which thou long shalt love to dwell, | |
| And undisturbed by wild sedition’s tread, | |
| Muse o’er the virtues of the silent dead. | 120 |
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